


I Would Have Followed All the Way to the Graveyard

by cognomen, MayGlenn



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Bottom Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Found Family, Fuckbuddies to Enemies to Lovers, Geralt & Jaskier & Yennefer & Cirilla, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Apologizes, Grave Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier Also Apologizes for the Canon of Breakup Songs he Wrote in the Aftermath of the Dragon Hunt, M/M, Porn With Plot, Post-Battle of Sodden Hill, Power Bottom Jaskier | Dandelion, Switching, The authors also apologize to 2010s pop artists, description of drastic first aid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:42:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25494811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cognomen/pseuds/cognomen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayGlenn/pseuds/MayGlenn
Summary: Geralt normally feels affection for very few things, enough that it’s a strange emotion for him. The horse, certainly. Some of his fellow Witchers if he doesn’t spend too much time with them (they quickly wear thin on novelty). Yennefer, in small increments. Jaskier…more often than not. Especially when Geralt’s eyes land on him and see the evidence of satisfaction on the bard, even as he’s doing his best to keep from limping while practically glowing with whatever it is he gets from their evenings together that isn’t just a solid pounding until he stops humming. Damned hard to sing when you’re asleep. (And…Geralt sleeps better, too, when thus exhausted.)It unnerves him. Enough that he hesitates, standing there long enough that Jaskier (frenetic, energetic, quick-moving and quick-thinking at least when it comes to insults or song) takes note.  “I’m not used to it when people stay.”Jaskier takes this as it is intended, which is as an immortal being to their pet dog. And that's how Jaskier feels sometimes, following Geralt around like a lovesick puppy. He offers an easy smile, "Well who else is going to keep you annoyed in the manner to which you've become accustomed, eh?"
Relationships: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon & Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 74
Kudos: 331





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is our version of 'The Soldier and Death,' a Russian folk tale, used to make Jaskier immortal so they can all live happily (bitchily) ever after.

There’s four parts of the day that Geralt least likes: the morning, the afternoon, the evening, and night time. He has practical reasons for each, but if he was forced to rank them, he likes the morning least. It’s far harder to give the evening before forgiveness when he wakes to the consequences. In this case, there’s another body that’s spread out over the bed like honey on toast and almost as damp, given the way the air’s gone warm and stale and heavy in the tent.

He pries Jaskier’s arm off his chest and lets it thump heavily to the bedroll, getting up to make ready without further comment on the situation. His mind moves at a slower pace after sleep, enough so that he sometimes hates the necessity. If they’re on the trail of a dragon—or Yennefer—he’ll need to be more awake for it. The ritual goes like so; first he checks the pair of swords, silver and steel. Take stock of the rest of his equipment; potions, herbs, darts. Then dress. Once these things are in order, the day begins, assuming he wakes up without imminent danger to his life.

The mage and the bard being present together leaves that an open-ended question as Geralt settles on the edge of the bed, after open-palm patting Jaskier’s bared calf with a repetitious swat until the bard moves it so he could sit and get his boots on. 

Jaskier has similar but opposite feelings about mornings. He likes them well enough, he just often misses them entirely. 

But hearing Geralt moving about does stir him. He groans a little, snuffles, buries his face in the blankets, and then tries to bury his foot under Geralt’s ass where he sits to put his boots on. When his foot is left cold again, he sits up, really groaning. No sense letting the witcher know how sore he is, since he’d probably just take it as a reason to not do this again. Or it would go to his head and make him smug, and honestly neither will do. 

So he greets Geralt and dawn with his usual permanent cheer. “Up and at ‘em already, eh, Geralt? The early witcher gets the coin?  _ Toss a coin to your witcher… _ ” 

Dead asleep to singing in five minutes: that has to be a record. 

The low rumble in Geralt’s chest doesn’t quite make it to  _ words _ , but the meaning is clear, especially when Geralt rakes his eyes over Jaskier like he’s looking for the best place to stab as far as what would bring an  _ end _ to singing before…roughly six in the evening. He stomps his foot into one boot, and reminds, “There’s a dragon.”

“Don’t dragons like songs?” Jaskier defends primly, in a sing-songy voice, and then he rubs his eyes. “Oh, you mean the getting up early.” 

Geralt’s eyes remain on him like their ember-color might really burn a hole in the overly cheerful bard, and he pulls on his other boot with a deliberate motion like he can stamp out the good mood for something more serious.

Dragon shmagon, as far as Jaskier is concerned, however he does like to know when things are happening around here, and he supposes he has to be awake for that. Also Tea and Vea seemed like morning people. He should check, anyway…

Jaskier gets up, tracking down his clothes, strewn about the campsite willy-nilly, and only wincing a little. Fucking Geralt was like drinking to excess: you loved it when you were doing it, and the more you did it the more you couldn’t stop, but you definitely felt it in the morning and told yourself you’d never do it again. Jaskier hums to himself to cover up the grunts. 

“Do you think we’ll actually find a dragon?” Jaskier wonders, hoping to stir the witcher to conversation. “Also, do you have anything interesting for breakfast?” 

“If we’re lucky, no.” the Witcher answers, in his usual short-and-effective style. If there  _ is _ a dragon, they won’t find it if  _ it’s _ lucky, either. The rest of the group seems more resolute. “You could try Sir Eyck’s leftovers. That would be interesting.”

“Gross,” Jaskier answers, sauntering over with a rakish look about him. 

Of course, their immediate effect on Sir Eyck having been obvious, it’s far from a sound suggestion. There’s a pause, while Jaskier rounds on him with his shirt unlaced and his breeks half up and the slow-moving center of Geralt is…moved, in some way. He stands up abruptly and rifles his saddlebags, minus Roach. She’d better be where he’d left her and in as good a condition on his return, but that’s a future problem. 

He comes up with what he’s looking for and tosses the two oat biscuits, equally suitable for man or horse, at Jaskier with less force than he might otherwise, given that he’s busy tying laces. They’ll be too stale for Roach by the time they get back, anyway. 

“What on earth is this?” Jaskier wonders, but he’s game for anything, and nibbles cautiously. “Bleh!” he spits. “Are you trying to murder me again, after all I do for you?” 

“I’ve never  _ tried _ to murder you,” Geralt points out. The truth is self-evident; Jaskier is still alive and possessed of all his limbs. Despite how easy it would be to put a stop to at  _ least _ the lute-playing.

“Attempted murder by djinn is still attempted murder,” Jaskier says, waving an arm both like a courtroom orator and like he doesn’t care, water under the bridge, what’s a little attempted murder between friends. He takes another bite, in spite of himself, and speaks with his mouth full, making exaggerated (perhaps comedic, in the right setting) overtures to vomiting. “Eugh, this is terrible!” 

“It’s oats,” Geralt says. “Honey. Salt.”

_ Breakfast _ , as far as he’s concerned, and well suited to it. But he’s never been the sort to seek out extravagance, and Jaskier has a tendency to gravitate toward excess. “Stop complaining.”

“There  _ can’t  _ be any honey in this,” Jaskier protests. “I think you gave me the one for the horse! This is just oats and...saddlebag smell.” 

But he is eating it, and it keeps him quiet for the next five minutes at least. 

“Next time, I’ll just save it for Roach.”

There’s something about it that prods some kind of feeling awake in Geralt. He normally feels affection for very few things, enough that it’s a strange emotion for him. The horse, certainly. Some of his fellow Witchers if he doesn’t spend too much time with them (they quickly wear thin on novelty). Yennefer, in small increments. Each of these he counts as experiences he can tick off in minutes; moments to the eons his life sometimes feels like. Jaskier…more often than not. Especially when Geralt’s eyes land on him and see the evidence of satisfaction on the bard, even as he’s doing his best to keep from limping while practically glowing with whatever it is he gets from their evenings together that  _ isn’t _ just a solid pounding until he stops humming. Damned hard to sing when you’re asleep (and…Geralt sleeps better, too, when thus exhausted). 

It unnerves him. Enough so that when he’s done strapping on his armor, he hesitates, standing there long enough that Jaskier (frenetic, energetic, quick moving and quick-thinking at least when it comes to insults or song) takes note. “I’m not used to it when people stay.”

Jaskier takes this as it is intended, which is as an immortal being to their pet dog. And that's how Jaskier feels sometimes, following Geralt around like a lovesick puppy, biting him when he comes too close to finding out he's lovesick. Jaskier knows Geralt loves Roach, after all (he is pretty sure he's never fucked the horse, but the witcher is a lonely man) but he doesn't expect or hope for much more. He offers an easy smile, "Well who else is going to keep you annoyed in the manner to which you've become accustomed, eh? But I accept your apology for giving me a horse breakfast, if that's what you're offering."

“Hmm.” Geralt hadn’t been offering an apology. The notion is strange, in fact. What is there to apologize for? But once the thought occurs, there’s a variety of things he knows he’s bad at that he might have offered reparations for. Then again, Jaskier has his own tendencies. Mostly, getting them both into trouble that the witcher has the foresight to avoid on his own. The fact that Geralt bails him out when he’s up to his ears serves as apology enough, at least in Geralt’s opinion. Finally he settles on, “You’re welcome.”

"Hm," Jaskier responds.

That seems to be enough, to his mind. He shoulders the saddle bags, and picks up the rest of his gear and expects that the rest of the camp will pretend politely (or under his withering stare, if necessary) that they’d all had cotton stuffed in their ears or been afflicted with momentary deafness for the prior evening.

Aside from one knowing glance by Jackdaws, he proves mostly correct. 

It wasn't so much that Jaskier was loud in bed as he was loud all the time, so everyone in the camp always knew where he was. Last night he happened to be in Geralt's bed, and after the crows feet comment from Yennefer,  _ the massive bitch _ , he felt a little smug about it. It was of course much easier to tell himself that sleeping with Geralt was 90% to spite her and 10% because Geralt was a fantastic lay, though he knew he was lying to himself, at least about the percentages. (Realistically, fighting over Geralt with Yennefer was eclipsed to under 10%, and less by the time he actually got into bed with the witcher.)

But Jaskier didn’t know the meaning of walk of shame, so he strutted himself out into camp quite merrily, hiding the hickey on his neck with as much success as a peacock hides his feathers. He made sure to ask Yennefer how she slept, before settling down with the dwarves for some real food and decent company, and who fed him for a song. He didn’t have to know where Geralt was  _ all  _ the time, after all. 

Geralt always keeps half an ear out, aware of Jaskier’s presence and where he might find danger, though his attitude toward some of it is ‘live and learn,’ and Geralt only steps in when something might truly mangle his traveling companion. A dragon probably fits the bill. And it’s only the first thing he has to worry about in the coming conflict.

He makes the choice to let Jaskier sleep in the next morning.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several months after the dragon hunt + fight

_So you're a tough guy_ _  
_ _Like it really rough guy_ _  
_ _Just can't get enough guy_ _  
_ _Chest always so puffed guy_

Jaskier does better without Geralt, actually. His songs are a little less _Toss a coin to your witcher_ and a little more _She’ll destroy with her sweet kiss_ for a while, and as he wanders his way back to Oxenfurt, to a bed, real food, fresh food—Gods, he’d kill for a _salad_ —stability, he applies his secret rage to more avant-garde song structures that are originating around the university, and makes complete bank to support all the drinking he wants to do. 

_Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in_ _  
_ _So shame on me now_ _  
_ _Flew me to places I'd never been_ _  
_ _Till you put me down._

It’s fun for a while, but it doesn’t give him enough to do, and at one point the Dean sees him performing in a local pub, and begs him to come back and teach. 

“Julian, you look like you’ve never left! All that adventuring must have been good for you. The students love that, you know, really keen on instructors who have a bit of life experience.” He thumps his shoulder companionably, “You might have to grow a beard just so they believe you’ve been somewhere.”

“Dean Okker, I have _never_ been able to grow a beard,” Jaskier replies ruefully, and downs the last of his whiskey (he’s switched to hard liquor fearing he’ll get fat if he keeps after the ale; he’s not as young as he used to be, no matter how he looks). “But yes, I’ll come back. When is the new semester? What will you have me teach?” 

_I've loved and I've lost_ _  
_ _But that's not what I see_ _  
_ _So, look what I got_ _  
_ _Look what you taught me_ _  
_ _And for that, I say_ _  
_ _Thank you, next_ _  
_ _Thank you, next_ _  
_ _Thank you, next_ _  
_ _I'm so fuckin' grateful for my ex._

-

As it turns out, things are quieter when Geralt rides alone. His thoughts are louder, camp is colder. All things he’d spent years in the company of before, without feeling the lack. Now he’s been twenty years off-and-on in the company of someone quick to talk and quicker still to ignore his surly mood, and in the scheme of how quickly Geralt usually does things, his turnaround is quick.

He doesn’t have to look hard, only ask. Jaskier’s passing is Remembered by those who occupy the inns and alehouses where he’s gone through, and the line was straight from where he’d last left the bard to Oxenfurt. He’s left everyone singing any number of ballads that it takes Geralt far too long to figure out probably _aren’t_ actually about the Countess de Stael. Then, they slide under his skin as he rides, too catchy to forget.

Once there he knows, too, where to look. The students make way as he leaves muddy footprints on the marble floors and he moves faster (for once) than word of his passage can, even with so many minstrels and poets to make gossip. He wants to reach Jaskier before word of himself does. Acutely, he finds the office attached to the lecture hall after brief questioning of one terrified looking student, and if he doesn’t knock it’s because he _expects_ to have to dismiss whoever else is in there in whatever state of dress they’re in. 

Instead it leaves him looming large in the empty office, surprised not to find Jaskier shirking his duties for more pleasurable pursuits. 

Jaskier appears to be reading sheaves of paper and parchment, expensive things that he scribbles all over with an expensive quill, muttering to himself while Geralt watches. “No, no, that isn’t at all what a faun looks like in the wild! Damon, we went over this…” 

He gets to the next one and his shoulders relax a little, barely reading this one, “Oh, Enea, thank gods, I haven’t lost them all.” 

And at this point, distracted, he starts humming:

 _“Tell me how's it feel sitting up there_ _  
_ _Feeling so high but too far away to hold me_ _  
_ _You know I'm the one who put you up there_   
_Name in the sky, does it ever get lonely?_ _  
Thinking you could live without me…”_

Geralt clears his throat, and though he’s never been all that good with the hours of the day, instead treating rough sections as whatever seems nearest, he knows it’s morning-enough that when he tosses a (linen for once and not leather) bag onto Jaskier’s desk in the middle of his papers that he can safely claim it to be breakfast.

“I brought you your favourite,” Geralt rumbles, because it’s the first thing that comes to mind and probably the easiest part of the conversation. “For breakfast.”

Inside the bag is not, as might otherwise be expected, oat cakes that taste like saddle leather, but instead the witcher dared the prestigious bakers of the city and paid the (to his mind) exorbitant fee for freshly baked fruit and cheese pastries, now somewhat less intact since he tossed them for effect. 

Jaskier blinks, several times, not at the pastries but up at Geralt of Rivia, in the flesh (oh, and _all_ that flesh), looking at him like nothing’s wrong and he _isn’t_ the cause of all Geralt’s unending misery. Like Geralt isn’t the cause of _Jaskier’s_ unending misery. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Jaskier demands, speaking out of surprise (and old hurt) before he can stop himself. 

Geralt has had the advantage of working himself up to this, playing out a few scenarios in his mind like he might if he was facing a particularly important fight. Strategizing. The peace offering is the first step, anyway. The next part is harder. Geralt sidesteps around it verbally to try and find the best tactical place for his words. “Your words are everywhere, but this is the only place I can answer them.”

Now Jaskier is really surprised. _My songs? This son of a bitch is tracking me down by my break-up songs and arrives with...fucking...apology muffins?_ Before blowing up this time, however, Jaskier pinches the bridge of his nose and thinks, getting his feet down off his desk. “You...heard those, then. What makes you think they’re about you?” 

He’d expected an explosion of drama at least equivalent to the several fits he’s witnessed over the years in relation to, well, Jaskier’s _relations_ . Not always with Geralt. The fact that Jaskier doesn’t immediately erupt is telling. _He’s maturing. And...it’s my fault._ Instead of facing up to this, however, it’s the words that leave Geralt’s eyebrows arching upwards on his otherwise impassive face. “If they’re not then I came a long way to apologize for no reason.”

Except it isn’t no reason, obviously, as Jaskier raises one eyebrow. The only way the music could haunt him is that they have a line to some guilt already in his soul. Geralt shifts, like the weight is there on his shoulders instead of the familiar swords-weight. 

Jaskier realizes, as the wheels in his brain begin to turn and his heart begins to pound, that their casual fuck-buddy non-relationship was maybe _something_ all along—which, of course it was, it had meant something to him, but Jaskier fell in love with everybody—and they both had been trying to tell themselves it didn’t mean anything. Until now, apparently, it did, it meant something from a distance, when they were out of it. 

“Melitele’s tits, Geralt,” Jaskier says, with the weight of this realization, and the realization that he’s hungry. He starts devouring the peace-pastries, getting sugar all over his sleeves. “You’d better sit down.” 

He doesn’t immediately sit down, but he does reach up to begin the process of disarming enough that he won’t jab a hole in Jaskier’s… office chairs. It’s not the sort of surroundings Geralt is used to, far less rugged and practical and far more soft and comfortable. Maybe Jaskier had taken this harder than even his songs indicated. Geralt had believed there was at least _some_ measure of overdrama and hyperbole included.

But, he’s eating the pastries, so that’s…something. Geralt finally leans his swords within reach and settles in the chair as indicated. He struggles to find words that make sense to fill the gap while enduring the bard’s glaring-and-chewing. “This is…respectable.”

There’s a glint of the immature Jaskier in his eyes as he says, “I _know_ , isn’t it terrible?” with his mouth full of pastry and also somehow a grin on his face. He swallows with difficulty and sits back. “Okay. So, it’s good to see you and all, Geralt, but I really thought I never would again.”

Geralt is, as usual, impassible, so Jaskier tries filling in Geralt’s parts of the conversation, a tactic that yielded good results in the past: 

“I’m quite willing to forgive your soul-crushing comments at our last meeting if you think you are ready to admit I’m _not_ , in fact, the source of all your troubles, and that perhaps you really do need me, or at least want me, around?” Jaskier has enough pride that part of him wants to make Geralt grovel his way to this, but he also has an _excess_ of pride that doesn’t mind demanding exactly what he thinks he deserves. 

“I’m sorry that—” Geralt starts, and then with some small bit of self-awareness (it’s not like he’s _received_ any apologies in his life so he’s somewhat unsure how they should actually be formatted) he stops himself from saying anything that starts with ‘you.’ That’s a lesson hard learned from Yennefer, not that Jaskier would be all that happy to hear it. “I’m not all that good at appreciating it when people are near me.”

“Clearly,” Jaskier says, then, when nothing more is forthcoming, he adds, “Well _then_ I might be willing to apologize for turning our little tiff into, well, several of the greatest songs the world has heard this decade.” 

“I’m sure you’ll have to hear them more often than I will,” is all Geralt has to say on _that_ matter. He pauses while Jaskier looks at him expectantly, one cheek still bulging with pastry, and then ventures. “You’re eating the pastries. Does that make us…?”

Jaskier glares at him, and, well, he is in professor-mode, and Geralt is being thick (or not so much thick as just completely improperly socialized, like a bad dog, it isn’t his fault), so he might as well: “Geralt, I want you to say these words, please: ‘Jaskier, I’m sorry for saying rude things to you when I was in a bad mood.’” 

“I’m—” Geralt starts, and then stops, trying to understand why it would be important to say the words if Jaskier already obviously understands the situation. But then, with a near petulance that suggests he’s not quite sure why this is necessary but that suggests he’s willing to admit that it is _anyway_ , Geralt continues. “Jaskier, I’m sorry for blaming you for things that weren’t your fault when I was in a bad mood.”

Jaskier continues waiting, expectantly, and Geralt grits out, as if this were obvious about his entire existence, “It was rude.”

At this, Jaskier sits up, eyes brightening. “So you _can_ learn!” 

Immediately he realizes this is a sarcasm too far, and shakes his head, passing a hand over his eyes. No need to pretend with Geralt. “No, no, now I’m sorry. I accept your apology, and your pastries, and offer apologies of my own, for—well, for reacting disproportionately. I hope you’ll allow me to make it up to you. It is good to see you.” 

He offers Geralt a genuine smile. 

“It’s a relief that you’re not suffering the way the music makes one believe,” Geralt says, flatly. He doesn’t smile in return, but he _is_ relieved that Jaskier does, that he seems hale and whole and that he’s found a place that is perhaps a _little_ less dangerous for him in the world. Getting to his feet again, Geralt takes the precautionary step of examining Jaskier’s frock before he tangles his gloved hand in the front of it. There are enough ink stains and now pastry crumbs adherent that he won’t offend the garment if his gloves retain some evidence of riding.

Geralt pulls their mouths together, just as aggressively as the untrained dog Jaskier compared him to not minutes earlier. 

“Well, I _was_ —” Jaskier began before Geralt grabbed him— “mmph!” 

He grabbed at his hat to keep it from falling off as Geralt pulled him nearly onto his toes, bending his head back to kiss him. Geralt wasn’t _that_ much taller than him, technically, but he used every inch to great advantage. Jaskier knew all about how Geralt used his _inches_ , and he moaned, throwing an arm around the back of his neck to kiss him harder. Before he could stop himself, he whispered, “I missed you.” 

Geralt resists the urge to answer that _every_ singer and tavern dandy from here to Nilfgaard told him that, more or less, in many more words and instead nods. “I missed you, too.”

Bemusedly, he notes to himself that the pastries were good, even secondhand. He doesn’t note that outloud. Instead he has a telling look back at the door, his cat-yellow eyes assessing it for indications that it locks. He briefly sets Jaskier back on his feet to go and take care of that, clicking the lock over. Jaskier will protest if he prefers otherwise, anyway. If there’s one thing that Geralt appreciates about him (and there are many) it’s his willingness to talk through just about anything, regardless of whether or not the other side is talking. 

“Geralt, not my office!” Jaskier squeaks in protest, but he doesn’t stop Geralt, and in fact he puts his grading and more precious books away, as if in preparation to sweep everything else off his desk and give in to the passion. “I have a private dormitory, you know. With an ample bed. Not that I’m opposed to…Oh, wait, wait, wait!” 

He removes a pot of very expensive ink from the desk as well, placing it in a drawer. “There.” 

Geralt watches the events with the faintest smile as Jaskier protests, then immediately begins cleaning off his desk for such exploits, and then practically climbs _onto_ it in invitation. He doesn’t even interrupt until he’s sure everything important has been set aside in relative safety, though he does take the opportunity to undo his own belt. 

He hunkers down over Jaskier when he’s done putting the inkpot safely in a drawer and presses a different glass vial in his hand, so he can keep track of it while Geralt pulls Jaskier’s pants off over his hips, crushing their mouths together again. Briefly, he gets one gloved hand on Jaskier’s cock in his rush and then grimaces at the mistake, straightening up to pull some of his armor off. 

“Don’t worry. We’ll get to your dormitory,” Geralt promises. “Eventually.”

“Ooh, will we make it before lights out at ten?” Jaskier teases boldly, belying how just the sound of buckles coming undone nearly undoes him. He rocks against Geralt, moaning open-mouthed, feeling ridiculous with his trousers around his knees but somehow, not really minding. “You didn’t have to come all this way just for a quick fuck. You plan on staying?” 

Geralt had planned, in a loose sense. Even with two potential outcomes. There was this, and perhaps several days of renewing their arrangements, or—well, it takes a considerable amount of alcohol to dull his senses but he’s managed it in the past. His wallet is perhaps grateful not to sustain a repeat.

There he goes, trying to sound like it doesn’t matter, so he adds as he turns and bends over the desk, as primly as he can, “I’d like it if you stayed. I might write a new song for you. You could guest lecture in my Introduction to Magical Fauna course. I’m sure your grunts and ‘hmms’ would be very stimulating for the students.” 

“ _You_ found them stimulating,” Geralt reminds, finally unclothed enough for the touch of skin on skin, and he gets hold of Jaskier’s cock in one hand and retrieves the vial of slick from Jaskier with the other to begin applying it. He leans down, affixing his mouth over the high collar of Jaskier’s shirt and against his neck to let him feel Geralt’s teeth before he gives a proper answer. “I’ll stay. A few days, anyway.”

Probably until he gets tired of the constant questions. Students in the liberal arts were insatiable. 

“Then I’ll come with you when you go,” Jaskier sighs, rocking back into his touch, and forward into the hand on his cock. “Gods, I missed your hands. In my weaker moments I almost wrote songs about them, you know. How gentle they can be, and how dangerous—ah—ah, yeah, yeah, right there!” 

The real verse, to Geralt’s mind, is the way Jaskier’s body opens up for him, welcoming and hot, the way he really seems to let pleasure consume him, dropping his guard like a set of untied trousers and welcoming deeply what he wants. Whether it’s two of Geralt’s well slicked fingers, taking time to allow that perhaps for the half a year they’ve been apart, perhaps Jaskier has done this as little as he has; that is, he hasn’t. Besides, there’s no mystery to how Jaskier is feeling, to how good it is, and Geralt perhaps enjoys the way anyone might, knowing that his partner is affected.

That for once, he can make someone feel good, just with the crook of his fingers, with the strength in his forearm hooking up from inside Jaskier toward his belly and toying with his prostate until they’re _both_ sweating with how good it is. He might not easily admit to how intoxicating he finds listening to Jaskier’s voice to be, but the fact that he comes back for more, that Geralt drinks it in like fine wine and always (he can admit to himself after this ordeal that it will be _always,_ until age or mortality claims one of them in some way) comes back for another taste. 

When he’s satisfied (or when he can’t afford to wait any longer to consummate his own desire) with the pitch of Jaskier’s voice and the clutch of his hands on the desk, he replaces his fingers with his own cock, and a rough shove, eyes boring into the bard’s as he seats down home, one hand still tight on Jaskier’s cock. 

Jaskier repays the attention by being very vocal about his appreciation, letting sweet and filthy things tumblr from his lips until he just can’t manage words anymore: “Fuck, Geralt, yes, gods damn you’re huger than I remembered, I need you in me, I need you down my throat, I’m going to go down on you for hours, fall asleep with your cock in my mouth and worship you like you deserve, you sweet horrible handsome menace!” 

At some point he notices that the high window is open and is probably carrying the sounds all throughout the halls of the university, and since he’s past the point of using words anyway he pitches his cries operatic, like he’s practicing his scales or composing instead of being roughly fucked over his desk. He reaches back and grabs Geralt’s hair, moving his hips in counterpoint to Geralt’s thrusts. 

A grunt answers the rough treatment of his hair, as Jaskier gets handfuls and yanks like he might reins on an ornery horse, but Geralt doesn’t protest. He watches Jaskier’s face, the way it changes and how he only gets more handsome at the height of pleasure. Or, maybe Geralt’s just getting too sentimental about it. No matter how the bard may try to disguise the nature of his cries the pitch and volume counterpoint to the heavy rhythm of their bodies makes no real question as to the activity, and when Geralt tips over he shoves forward hard enough to move the desk on it’s feet, scraping on the marble floor as he crushes their mouths together, his fist pumping Jaskier’s cock without mercy so he won’t be left behind. 

There’s been quite enough of that already. 

Jaskier screams a perfect F-sharp that he can’t ordinarily hit without thoroughly warming up, and he comes all over himself and his desk and knocks a stack of books off in his flailing. 

“Oh, fuck,”Jaskier wheezes, grabbing Geralt’s face this time and craning around to kiss him. “I haven’t been fucked like that in 67 days.” 

Geralt is panting, his heart (in comparison to the usual) pounding as he leans into the kiss and then actually laughs, a low-rough sound in his throat. He always _does_ feel better after all the endorphins of orgasm, anyway. “You kept count.”

“Of course I kept count. Was going to write a real doozy of a Fuck You Ballad on day 100. Something something,” and then he’s singing, his voice reverberating beautifully in the large room: “ _we could have had it aaaaaaalllll_ …” 

It shouldn’t surprise Geralt, but it does, and then the singing surprises him again. With a grunt of protest, he pauses to kiss Jaskier again, and then taste some of his release off his own thumb, and finds all of that satisfying, though the way they’re starting to stick together and to the desk he likes less. Still, he stays and they kiss tenderly if intensely for a while, indulging in softness in a way Geralt would not admit to liking but seems to find any excuse for. 

A giggle suddenly erupts from Jaskier, as though he realizes with mounting shame where they are, or realizes with real joy that Geralt is here and back, or else that Geralt’s hair is just tickling his neck. “Alright, alright. Can I interest you in a tour of the grounds? A visit to my favorite non-student pub? The professors’ lounge? Or straight to my dormitory? The walls are somewhat thicker, there.” 

Geralt gets up at last, straightening his back and giving a languid stretch. He thinks, perhaps, that Jaskier wants to be seen with him to get a little more clout around the campus, but in this case Geralt thinks it’s well-deserved, as he gets his clothing back in order. “How many of your students will want to fight for your honor?”

Jaskier snorts. "I don't sleep with my _students_ , Geralt."

Probably not any that could match Geralt and if Jaskier has imparted a little wisdom with the knowledge they’ll take one look at him and reconsider any grand notions. So he finishes re-dressing, retrieves Jaskier’s hat from the floor, and then pulls his desk back into the position it had originally been. “I’d like to see the campus.”

Which means, ‘show me your life here, and perhaps the last place should be your dormitory.’ The top of Jaskier’s desk is really a mess, however. Geralt leaves it, like a territorial mark.

"Really?" Jaskier wonders, surprised but overjoyed. Maybe Geralt is still apologizing, but he'll take it. He rights his trousers (feeling the wet spot between his legs is a delicious sensation, and he only vaguely hopes it won't show through) but leaves his shirt freakishly askew for anyone who wonders. The desk, however, he does wipe free at least of the spunk. "Don't want to damage the finish."

“Naturally,” Geralt says, evenly. He doesn’t let too much of his amusement show.


	3. Chapter 3

The university, well-fortified in the center of Redania, is pastoral and lovely, even though it's still very early spring and a little chilly. Still, the grass is green and some of the trees are even blooming. Geralt looks like he feels out of place, but Jaskier doesn't think he actually looks it. 

The students and faculty give them a wide berth, though. Some whisper to each other. 

"You provide a lovely immunity from students asking for extensions," Jaskier observes, sticking close to his witcher. "And colleagues inviting me to serve on committees. Here's the music hall, where I perform, sometimes. Not those little ditties you heard, of course. Operas, mostly. Rather boring."

The noise low in Geralt’s chest reveals his opinion on operas, but he doesn’t give words to the emotion. The music hall, a high-ceilinged auditorium,  _ is _ nice, and his sharp ears pick up the change in acoustics instantly, so the design must be clever.

Jaskier leads the way boldly, bringing Geralt down from the house toward the stage. There are some actors practicing a play, and Jaskier raises a hand at them in apology and an indication he doesn’t mean to interrupt. The actors are students, and used to tour groups, so they go back to rehearsing. 

"Lovely, isn't it?" Jaskier asks in a hushed tone.

“Yes,” Geralt agrees, though he still feels a bit like he’s tracking mud on the floor. There’s a reason he spends so much time in the wild, beyond the practical idea that the monsters he makes his living hunting are mostly there. “It suits you.”

He means it, too. Not just because it’s far enough from the conflict between Cintra and Nilfgaard, at least for the moment. 

“Well, maybe,” Jaskier replies with a shrug, and takes Geralt to the libraries next. 

These are also cavernous and opulent, and they also have to speak softly in here. If they get a few strange looks from students this time, Jaskier drinks them in, taking every opportunity to touch the Witcher, directing his attention to this, that or the other, or pressing against his back or chest to move him forward or hold him back. 

Geralt can’t quite tell whether Jaskier appreciates his presence to reflect well on him, to make him appear more badass than he is to be keeping company with a Witcher, or whether Jaskier is proud  _ of him _ , preening at the opportunity to show him off. It might be both, or it might be something else, because once or twice he catches Jaskier looking at him like they’re the only two people in the whole world. 

These casual renewals of their acquaintance Geralt allows. He’s not demonstrative on a good day (and today is one of those), but time enough has passed that he can allow these on the collection of interest for lost time. He might even return the look now and again, and once he hooks his hand out to the small of Jaskier’s back to guide him out of the way of one of the beleaguered library aides with a large stack of books. 

“Any histories, spells, monsters you might want to look up while you’re here?” Jaskier wonders, vaguely teasing, grabbing at his elbow. “Otherwise I’ll just show you pretty things: illuminated manuscripts, carven tablets thousands of years old, and other curiosities. We have a unicorn horn!” 

Geralt looks skeptical of the last, but doesn’t question it outwardly; his disbelief is obvious. However, he  _ does _ have a question that could benefit from the stacks, so he moves beyond arguing with Jaskier (the least virginal person he knows besides, perhaps, himself) over the veracity of the school’s artifacts. “I need to know about the law of surprise.” 

Specifically, if anyone’s ever successfully ducked out of it without dying. 

Jaskier laughs, too loudly for the library, but he’s walking around with a  _ witcher _ , so who’s really going to shush hum? Still, he does get his volume under control as he continues: “Still on that one, eh? Word is she disappeared in the attack on Cintra. Might not be your problem anymore, gods rest her soul.” 

“She’s still out there,” Geralt reveals, though he knows Jaskier’s pragmatism isn’t exactly without reason. “Nilfgaard is looking for her. So, she’s out there somewhere.”

He shifts his weight, breathing out a belabored sigh. “Nevermind. If fate could just stop doing me any more favors, I won’t have to worry about it.”

“Well, we can look, anyway. There might be something in the legends about not accepting it. You know, I still haven’t figured out why you did that, Geralt. You could have just asked him for a single gold coin, or something, since he insisted like that. A new horse, a sword, gods, I can think of several things you could use more than surprise of any kind. You need stability, my friend. A bath.” Jaskier wanders the stacks while he rambles, knowing precisely (or at least generally) where such a tome could be found without the use of the indexes. He leads Geralt over a velvet rope that says Faculty Only without glancing at it. 

“I just said the first thing that came to mind at the time,” Geralt admits, aware of the fact that it probably makes him sound like an idiot…he certainly felt like one immediately after the words had left his mouth. 

“Oh, I’m glad you did, honestly. Keeps things interesting,” Jaskier says, patting Geralt’s chest companionably. Finally he gestures to one shelf, stuffed with a few very old tomes and some scrolls, and even a few of those stone tablets. “Alright, somewhere in here we might find something. Anything you can’t read I’ll—” here Jaskier remembers who he’s talking to, and continues seamlessly, “oh, nevermind, you know more languages in your sleep than I’ve mastered in all my years, don’t you, old friend?” 

“I don’t mind the help.” Geralt leafs the tomes and begins to pull a scroll free before he considers the relative state of his hands (and the various substances that may be drying on them) and lets go of his hold. “But you were right about the bath.”

“Well, we can take care of that,” Jaskier says, collecting a few promising tomes and giving them to Geralt to hold. “I’ll check these out, we can take them back to my rooms.” 

Geralt’s not sure they’ll be much safer there, but he carries the stack obediently, because he is interested in what he can learn from them.

Jaskier writes something in a log book before they leave, and guides Geralt, carrying a stack of tomes behind him, to another long, opulent hallway that opens onto a sunny courtyard. He withdraws a key and lets them in. “Here we are!” 

He reveals a small but well-furnished apartment, with a bed, desk, bookshelf, and a small place for preparing food. He even has a water pump directly into his room. “Make yourself at home! I suppose you put Roach up somewhere nice? If not, there are stables nearer by where you could move her. You can wash up quickly here—” he shows off the pump, endlessly pleased by it, “or I can show you to the baths just down the hall. If you want to wash up, I’ll go fetch some lunch for us? Or...I could join you?” 

Geralt runs his eyes over the place and the corner of his mouth turns up to one side, amused. “Roach is taken care of.”

He sets down the stack of books somewhere safe, away from any surfaces large enough for other uses, and then reaches out for Jaskier. “You should join me, if we can avoid interruption.”

Jaskier grins hugely, grabbing his towels and basket of soaps and bath creams. He tosses one towel over Geralt’s shoulder. “It just so happens that the door  _ does  _ lock.” 

“Scholars think of everything,” Geralt observes, following behind. He leaves his armor, but takes his swords. You never knew what troubles might come for you in the bath. 

With an almost-wink, Jaskier leads the way again, locking his room after them only because he has the library books in there. 

The water runs hot enough for steam to fill the place and Geralt actually feels a thrill of anticipation for a long soak to get the worst of the grime out. His clothes could use a wash as well, but for now he’ll settle for this, chin deep water that’s hot enough to scour out his sins. It puts him in a good enough mood that he doesn’t even stop Jaskier from putting whatever it is he’s dropping into the bath water. 

He climbs in, settling against the rim of the tub, pausing to soak his hair, and then makes himself comfortable, just in time for Jaskier to climb in on top of him. 

Jaskier straddles Geralt’s lap, pressing into his space and kissing him, beginning to massage his scalp with damp fingers. “What do you think of the amenities so far, Geralt?” 

Letting his eyes close partway, Geralt appreciates Jaskier, and the way he’s willing to forgive, and his crow’s feet. He can let his guard down, nearly all the way, and it’s a relief beyond anything he can express. He quirks an eyebrow at Jaskier fishing for compliments, and then settles his hands against the expanse of the small of the bard’s back, and begins to rub with a tireless strength.

“So far, they seem worth the fact that I’m going to smell like flowers.” Not that he ever complains to Yennefer about such things, because he values having most of his parts attached. He lets out a deep sigh of contentment. He’s not quite sure how to bring up the fact that Jaskier seems to want people on campus to talk about them, so he doesn’t, instead content to be content, for now. 

Jaskier smiles like a very pleased cat, and he keeps massaging Geralt’s scalp, rubbing his temples and behind his jaw. Without asking permission, he starts to lather up and wash Geralt’s hair, until the length is piled up on top of his head in suds. 

“I’d suggest a shave, too, but I rather like the feel of your stubble on the inside of my thighs,” Jaskier suggests in a whisper. 

“Hmm.” Geralt considers the image himself, rather pleased with the thought. The bath doesn’t make it easy on first glance, but the tub sunk into the floor might oblige if he just… 

Geralt lifts Jaskier out of the water and lays him back on the floor at the edge of the tub, the marble itself warm from the heated air of the baths. He takes Jaskier’s suggestion, kneeling on the bench of the tub and hoisting Jaskier’s knee over his shoulders with no real regard for the soap in his hair (running suds down his back but thankfully not into his eyes). 

He’s never had any reserve about this, so with one hand on Jaskier’s cock and the other under the small of his back to elevate his hips he first mouths perhaps brusquely (but with direct intent) over Jaskier’s balls and then down to lick him open, tonguing against his sore rim until he can soothe some of the ache he left there earlier, with perhaps the full intent of leaving him sore all over again. 

“Oh!” Jaskier cries when Geralt lifts him rather unceremoniously out of the bath, but he doesn’t struggle—like a puppy, some instinct making him go loose whenever the witcher manhandles him—and “O-oh!” he cries again, stuttering, as Geralt takes him in hand, licks into him with that strong tongue, every muscle in his body stronger than it should be. The acoustics in here are amazing, and he groans again, more or less on key, playing the kind of song for Geralt that he knows he likes. And yes, the scrape of his beard stubble is something he’s going to feel for days. “Ah, fuck, Geralt, no more teasing, just fuck me!” 

Except in this case, Geralt refuses to be rushed and just takes his time until  _ he’s _ satisfied and Jaskier is trying to claw lines in the marble and Geralt’s already-scarred shoulders, having about equal effect on either despite his nicely manicured nails. Finally, he shifts up, climbing halfway out of the bath to pull Jaskier’s hips toward his, taking Jaskier with a slow stretch this time, hooking one arm beneath his hips to ease them both back into the bath, sweetly scented water embracing them both as he rolls his hips up slow.

Jaskier’s groans turn almost weary as Geralt just continues to torture him, slowly, sweetly, and it feels so nice—no wonder all the women love him!—before finally giving it to him rough. Getting fucked by Geralt is always a ride, and right now, after so long a dry spell and then twice in one day, it’s almost more than Jaskier can handle, but that makes him want it more, makes him harder for it. 

“Gah, fuck!” he grunts, loudly, as Geralt settles him on his lap. The buoyancy of the water helps reduce the impact, dulls the things that hurt, while helping him to control the movement without his legs—knees perched on the bench on either side of Geralt’s hips—giving out. He braces his elbows on Geralt’s shoulders and kisses him, hard and desperate, lots of teeth. “Only you can make being split in half feel this good.” 

_ Certainly it’s a point of pride that Jaskier asks for i _ t, Geralt thinks, somewhere in the warmth and satisfaction of pleasure, though he keeps his pace slow enough to take his time with it, like there’s a proper way to renew their acquaintance. He can feel Jaskier winding up, seizing control and trying to rush them along, but he holds onto the bard’s hips and slows his rush.

Jaskier actually bites Geralt’s ear, then, hard enough to sting, but then he spits and splutters. “Bleh! Soap!” 

“ _ You _ put it there,” Geralt reminds, but he finally relents and braces himself with one hand on the bench to shove up, hard, giving in to the pace Jaskier demands before he anchors himself with his teeth on Jaskier’s shoulder, to leave a mark as they both cum. 

“Don’t question my—augh!” Jaskier cries out, also bracing himself on the ledge, even getting one foot up onto the bench as they slosh most of the water out of the bath in the heat of the moment, chasing that edge with teeth and fingernails. Jaskier wouldn’t admit that it’s that possessive Witcher bite that really undoes him, and he groans loud and low as he empties into the water, and feels Geralt fill him up with more spunk than is really necessary. 

“Rinse your hair so I can kiss you properly,” Jaskier finally demands, pushing off the edge of the bath, but keeping his legs curled around Geralt’s waist so he’s floating invitingly on his back. 

“Were you always so demanding?” Geralt wonders aloud, but the tone is as close to fond as he gets, and he obeys anyway, finally washing the soap lather out of his hair (and some of the sting out of his eyes), before he gathers Jaskier against him and returns the favor of washing his hair and his back. 

Into this contented silence, Geralt drops a minor stone. “You should stay here when I go out again.”

He leaves room for the protest, even though he has reasons and reassurances, because he knows it will come anyway, whether Geralt is talking or not. 

“Hm?” Jaskier replies, dicked into a stupor, eyes half-closed. “Oh, I don’t know, I thought we might go to the pub together for supper.” 

The next silence is so profound that it forces Jaskier to go back over the conversation like he had missed something crucial, and when he realizes what it is, his heart gives an alarmed ka-thunk that he knows the witcher hears. 

Even so, Jaskier feigns disinterest, though his face is vaguely pinched. “Well, naturally, I’ll need to finish the term out. I can’t go following you around at the drop of a hat.” 

He  _ would _ , though. 

“I’ll be back by the end of the term,” Geralt says, surprised at the levelness of the answer. He leans back comfortably, keeping Jaskier close to him, hoping the conversation can continue in a civil pitch. “I’m going south, but not staying.”

“ _ Into _ the war, Geralt?” This Jaskier doesn’t like hearing, even though he knows the witcher— _ his _ witcher, his gods damned moron of a fuck-buddy—will be fine. He’s unkillable: he’s seen it in action. He rubs his face again, finally sitting up under his own power. “I’m going to lose beauty sleep over this, you know.  _ Yennefer  _ will be happy.” 

There’s nowhere to stay, with Nilfgaard overrunning the country and Geralt’s sure that conflict is soon coming to a head. He’ll be faster (and quieter) by himself to arrowhead a rescue. Especially one as ill-conceived as whatever it is he’s planning. Rather than explain all of that, he suggests, “She’s never happy. In the meantime I need to figure out how to break fate.”

“Uuuugh, fine,” Jaskier relents. He sighs and smiles, and says with surprisingly much less venom than he’d said Yennefer’s name, at least: “I knew you only apologized because you needed me for something.” 

Still shaking his head, Jaskier hauls himself out of the bath to dry off. 

“I apologized because I—” Geralt starts, then stops suddenly, hesitant. He gets up, after one last rinse for his hair, and then wrings it out , reaching out to drain the tub. “I didn’t need something. I needed you.”

Jaskier sucks in a breath, not facing Geralt immediately, not able to. 

He stops to towel his face dry, perhaps so he doesn’t have to see Jaskier’s reaction to that bit of information. Geralt retrieves his clothes and then considers them, finding them offensive, so he just slings the towel around his hips (it strains to stay in place). “Is there a robe I can borrow?”

“Yes, er—” Jaskier stirs himself, and offers his own robe before staring obviously. “Uh. You know it’s a crime to cover all that up, right?”

“I was under the impression that it was a crime not to,” Geralt rumbles, giving Jaskier a sly look. 

Jaskier grins, passing the robe over and slinging a towel around his own waist. “But yes, take this. Gods know it’ll still be too short on you, but I hardly care what you wear in my dorm. We can have your clothes laundered overnight. Do you have anything clean-ish to wear to dinner?” 

“I should.” Geralt takes a mental inventory of his belongings, but he hadn’t brought many of them in, on the chance that Jaskier started throwing things at him or attempting to stab him with a desk pen. “In my bags.”

He slings on the too-small robe, straining it at the shoulders but at least it covers most of him. He slings his swords ludicrously over one shoulder, and endures the looks of disbelief on the students they pass as he stalks out of the baths behind Jaskier (who is practically glowing). 

Jaskier manages a strut back to his rooms, as sore as he is, and he lights a small fire so they can dry themselves and the towels, while Jaskier slips into a long shirt, not bothering with trousers as he pushes Geralt down onto his bed. Aside from this, however, his kiss is fairly chaste. “It’s alright to need me  _ and  _ my access to rare historical records. Just like I need you  _ and  _ your enormous...rudeness.” 

Geralt grunts, helpless to do anything except prove Jaskier’s point. He shifts to lean against the pile of pillows as Jaskier arranges himself.

He winks and settles down in Geralt’s lap, pulling the stack of books towards them. 

“The access helps,” Geralt says. He’d checked the decimated remains of the library at Kaer Morhen, but nothing remained that was of any help, so he takes the first book that Jaskier passes him and begins to search it. Perhaps extremely belatedly, he observes, “You know unicorns aren’t real, right?”

Jaskier elbows him. “Take that back! Our specimen is genuine!” 


	4. Chapter 4

_Oh no, there you go, making me a liar_ _  
_ _Got me begging you for more_ _  
_ _Oh no, there I go, startin' up a fire, oh no, no_ _  
_ _Oh no, there you go, you're making me a liar_ _  
_ _I kinda like it though_ _  
_ _Oh no, there I go, startin' up a fire, oh no, no_

Their night at the pub is rather like old times, with Geralt brooding in a corner and Jaskier playing for an adoring audience, adding another catchy tune to the rumor mill saga. Though this isn’t a student pub, no one fails to notice in whose company Jaskier dines, and Jaskier doesn’t hide his adoration for the witcher. 

They stumble back to his dormitory, planning to research more on the law of surprise, but, “Geralt, you must be tired after your long journey,” Jaskier suggests, massaging his shoulders, and they end up blowing each other and falling asleep instead. 

-

Geralt wakes alone the next morning, with a note and breakfast beside the bed, every stitch of his clothing taken to be laundered, and one ankle chained to the bed. 

The chain proves more ornamental than practical, but at least it’s silver. Geralt rolls his eyes and reaches for the note, sitting up.

_G.—_

_Faculty meeting. Should be home shortly after terce. Don’t go anywhere. ♡_

_J._

Geralt growls faintly, reaching for breakfast. He finishes this while tolerating the chain on his ankle, before he finally has to undo it to empty his bladder, which is more polite than he _has_ to be. If he puts his bare ass on Jaskier’s expensively upholstered chairs to delve further into the tomes, well, Jaskier was _asking_ for that, really. Geralt pours himself some wine from last night’s leftover bottle, and peruses.

He looks up when the door opens, expecting Jaskier, but it’s one of the bard’s students who pauses with a deer-in-headlights look at the sight of one naked Witcher reading at Jaskier’s desk, and then quickly leaves again, closing the door behind them. 

Finally Jaskier arrives, with a thick and messy notebook and a bag of laundry. “Oho! You stayed put! Didn’t think you had it in you.” 

He says it with a cattiness that isn’t necessary but is there to cover up how genuinely surprised and pleased he is. He shuts the door and admits, “I—I was worried. I thought you would leave without saying goodbye. I’m glad you didn’t.” 

“You had a visitor,” Geralt says plainly, accepting both the admonishment and the admittance with the same sort of tolerance he has for most of Jaskier’s habits. “And all my clothes.”

Getting to his feet at last, Geralt stalks across the space with no real concern for his nakedness, reaching out to put his hand on Jaskier’s chest, and then turn his head to one side to give him a kiss on the way past. “I’ll stay until tomorrow. No need to bother with the chain.”

"Shame. I had _plans_ for that," Jaskier teases.

He watches Geralt dress and then pack the rest of his clothes, while he opens up his notebook. "No one I spoke with says there's any way out of the law of surprise. It's rather more binding than any usual transaction, barring the ones where souls are involved, of course. Master Reginald suggested we try searching demonologies and books where souls _are_ involved, as they might actually be more helpful."

This, Geralt considers, before ultimately shaking his head. It’s too much to go through at the moment, and people love their demon mythology too much not to add useless extras to their records. 

Here Jaskier lowers his voice and leans in. "But Isidore said that what Queen Calanthe did to you might be the entire reason Cintra was attacked. Trying to cheat you out of your surprise. I shudder to think your fate has that much power, when you're already scary enough."

“It’s not fate. It’s people trying to defy it that…” Geralt starts, and then trails off, shrugging. He himself is trying to defy it, after all. “I didn’t want a child. I didn’t even want a dog.”

It just turns out you can’t take it back, though Calanthe certainly tried even when all Geralt was offering was a way out of danger for her grandchild. He can hardly blame her for resisting, until it became stupider to resist than to give in. He shifts, uncomfortably. “But now that she’s out there I can’t leave her.”

“And you’re... _sure_ she’s not...” Jaskier begins slowly, but Geralt’s glare has him throwing up his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, she’s out there, alive. Maybe what you need is a locating spell of some kind. Unfortunately…” 

Jaskier groans, running a hand through his hair. “Every sorcerer in the land is rather focused on the war. Our sorcerer-in-residence isn’t even in right now. So another dead end.” 

“I’m a pretty good tracker,” Geralt says, working his tongue briefly over his teeth as he considers his options. Yennefer is unlikely to be willing to help, with Nilfgard heading for Sodden and her own agenda to consider. It’s what he’s supposed to do _after_ he finds her that he’s not sure about. This he doesn’t ask Jaskier for help with, as he doesn’t want to wake up under a stack of books on parenting. 

He shakes off the notion. “You look for answers. I’ll look for her. Deal?”

It’s perhaps a bit much to assume he can include Jaskier in his endeavors, after just returning and making amends, but he also knows that this may be a part of his life going forward, and he’s not sure he can—or should—do it alone. Their relationship is changing. 

"Well, I'll do my best. Perhaps I'll put a few of my doctoral students on it." Jaskier grins like that's an inside joke, but waves it away when Geralt doesn't laugh. "If I’m to agree to that, you agree to this: We finish the current term up in two months. On the 25th, the month after next. If you're not back here by then, I'm grabbing my lute and coming after you. Once all my marks are in. 26th, maybe."

Geralt doesn’t look like he likes it, but even he’s forced to admit, “If I’m not back by then, alright.”

He resolves to make the deadline if he’s alive and able, and if he’s not then he might _need_ to be rescued, not that he’ll ever admit it. He reaches for the stack of books and begins to reassemble it, settling it neatly on Jaskier’s personal desk. “We can find other occupations for today.”

Mostly because if he has to listen to Jaskier worry for the rest of the time, they’ll both regret it. He clears his throat. “I saw that there was a lecture on astronomy…”

"Oh, you'd go to that with me?" Jaskier asks, deftly distracted. "I'd just as soon throw tomatoes at Johnson while he's presenting, but it'll be infinitely more tolerable with you to whisper rude things to the whole night…"

-

Jaskier shoves Geralt back onto the bed the moment they get home, locking the door behind them. Geralt must have had more to drink than Jaskier thought, or else he’s feeling indulgent, because he actually goes down, sprawling out on his back, shirt sliding down one shoulder, instead of standing there like a gorgeous tree. 

"Going to give you something to remember me by this time, Geralt," Jaskier says, crawling on top of him and kissing him hard. 

“I hope it’s not another ballad,” Geralt teases gently, but he kisses the indignant look off Jaskier’s face and indulges him. There are few who would even dare in the attempt, and fewer still that Geralt is fond enough of to allow, but in this case both of these conditions are obliged, so he lays back permissively, a lazy and pleased expression on his face. It hadn’t helped that whatever effect his return had on Jaskier (or even if it was just curiosity) all of the students had bought drinks to send to him, and it proves easier to just drink when a bard insists than try to argue.

“You are the rudest possible person I have ever had the pleasure of fucking, Geralt of Rivia,” Jaskier says, sounding...not at all drunk. Like he perhaps wishes he were drunk. “And if you were here longer, I’d make you regret that statement. As we haven’t got time, I’ll make you regret it when my latest ballad _beats_ you to the border of Redania before you get there, you glorious clusterfuck of a man.” 

Geralt actually chuckles in the face of Jaskier’s furious promise, which he knows pretty much guarantees that the promised torment is forthcoming. He peels off his own shirt while he has the opportunity.

Jaskier climbs on top of him, and grabs his throat, hooking his fingers behind his jaw and tugging Geralt into a thirsty kiss. Geralt answers with a hunger that drinks it down, pulling Jaskier’s body against his with the same savageness, undoing his clothes with a rough urgency that may split a few stitches. 

“What do we have time for, then?” Geralt wonders, as if he doesn’t have an idea already. 

"For me to fuck you, so you have something to remember me by," Jaskier answers easily, tugging Geralt's trousers open and palming his cock. His body and gaze are hard, but his voice is loving, suggestive, playful. Adoring. "You going to let that happen, Witcher, or am I going to have to chain you to the bed again?"

Geralt gives Jaskier a nonplussed look but doesn’t argue that there’s no way, chain or no chain, he could act on what was proposed if Geralt wasn’t fully willing to let him. But the hand on his cock is good, welcome and attentive, so Geralt just arches his back. “Do your worst.”

“Never,” Jaskier counters, sweetly. “Only the _best_ for you, dearest.” 

He gets his own hand on Jaskier’s cock through his pants, then, stroking and coaxing to hurry the bard along, pulling their mouths together again roughly if only to keep Jaskier from talking for the duration of the long kiss while they both finish undressing each other. It’s a process that involves a lot of rubbing and grinding against each other since neither wants to fully give over to letting the other handle it.

Jaskier still manages to be loud, of course, because Geralt’s bossy mouth has never been a match for his, and as he kisses and nibbles and licks his way down Geralt’s body he gets a few noises out of the witcher, too. When he gets his mouth on Geralt’s cock he’s just as loud, of course, because he’s good at this, knows just what Geralt likes even if Geralt doesn’t know that tongue trick after four hundred years because he’s too broody to get laid or whatever. Geralt _needs_ him, Jaskier is certain. 

It’s definitely unusual to have someone groaning with your dick in their mouth, or at least it is for Geralt, but not unpleasant. He doesn’t quite growl an answer as he does let loose a rumble with a different pitch, counterpoint to the hungry sounds Jaskier is making on his dick (unexpectedly a turn on, Geralt discovers, to his not-quite-dismay). 

Geralt certainly needs _this_ , as Jaskier starts working nimble, slicked fingers into his tight ass. It’s a lovely bottom, but he definitely needs to relax more than once a decade. 

So Jaskier starts moving slower, sucking less urgently, and fingering him open like neither of them have anywhere else to be. He flicks Geralt hard in the thigh when he tries to move, and gives him a warning grunt. He pulls off, mouth slick. “Just relax and take it, alright? I’ve got you.” 

(Geralt likes it gentle, sometimes, too, Jaskier knows. He doesn’t get to have gentle often.)

“Trying,” Geralt admits, but he’s not used to letting himself relax, even for this. It takes all of his focus to let himself unfocus, to let the world blur at the edges and his breathing go slow, but when he focuses inward on slowing his heartbeat, the exercise is too well practiced and his erection starts to flag. So, he tries to find something in between, something where he’s not clamping down on Jaskier’s fingers every time he moves. They have the time for this, to take it slow until Geralt’s body relaxes without his mind, or at least relents for Jaskier’s pushing fingers and distracting mouth.

He unclenches one of his hands from the bard’s bedsheets finally, and eases it against the back of Jaskier’s neck instead, rubbing encouragingly as Jaskier tries to pry a third finger into him, slow going, but it earns a groan as they finally manage it, Geralt tipping his hips up so that Jaskier’s fingers sink deeply as possible. 

The movement gags Jaskier slightly, and he pulls off, managing to look sloppy and demure at the same time. He responds by kissing Geralt's hip. "You're so beautiful like this, Geralt. Just letting go for me so prettily." 

Three fingers is good, Jaskier decides suddenly, sitting up to start getting himself ready. He hasn't even lost his own trousers, yet. 

Somewhere in the dim reaches of his mind, Geralt registers the praise and wonders if it’s not the sort of thing Jaskier might like to hear, encouragement and praise. He also wonders, briefly, if he can make himself do it even in privacy when they’re alone. He’s never been fully certain of how praise works, at least outside of praising for combat prowess or mastering a particular set of runes. He files it away for something to make an attempt at, later. 

Jaskier shucks out of his trousers, kissing his way up Geralt’s chest. “Roll over for me?” 

He shifts, knowing well enough that the easier position for this is to get onto his hands and knees, though it makes him feel vulnerable to bare his scarred back, he doubts Jaskier is going to do any worse with his nails, and he owes him a little vulnerability, after showing his fangs in such an unbecoming way those months earlier. Plus, though he nearly growls when Jaskier finally starts pushing in, slick though he is and stretched though _Geralt_ is, it feels better than he’d admit. Grounding and central in a way Geralt wouldn’t try putting into words. Hopefully, it comes across in how he reaches back to clutch at Jaskier’s thigh. 

“Mm, fuck,” Jaskier says, laying a hand over Geralt’s and briefly tangling their fingers before he has to shift their positions slightly, adjust his grip, push Geralt’s knees a little further apart. He holds his hips firmly, sliding in slow to give them both a chance to get used to it, and then reaches around to get his hand on Geralt’s cock. The sheer size difference between them means he has to fold himself over the witcher’s back, and he kisses his spine as he begins to stroke him. “Good. You’re so good.”

It’s not really an apt descriptor, but it’s not the time to argue case in point for semantics. Besides, he _feels_ good, at least, in a purely physical and tangible way. He gets his hand over Jaskier’s on his own cock, squeezing a little tighter but not rushing him. He doesn’t _want_ to rush this; instead just enjoy it. It gets easier quickly, from the first time Jaskier moves, wrapped around Geralt and trying to engulf him, futilely. 

"I've got you," Jaskier says, closing his hand tighter around Geralt's cock and giving it a twist.

“Jask,” he gasps, when Jaskier starts to move, and he turns his eyes into the curve of his arm. It’s request and permission both, when he agrees, “ _Fuck._ ”

"Okay, _relax_. I've got you," Jaskier says, and by this he means he's going to start really fucking him, and jacking his cock in time with his thrusts. "Like that? Harder? Let me spoil you, Witcher."

The very notion is unfamiliar, but Geralt supposes if anything, Jaskier has spoiled him in some ways (and certainly for some things), and he doesn’t resent any of it. So he puts both his hands on the bard’s ridiculously soft bed and lets Jaskier work him over, the initial sting of the thrusts fading quickly behind the quick pace on his dick and the punishing hardness of his thrusts being impossible to ignore.

Jaskier takes the 'Hmm' as assent, anyway.

It gathers quickly, almost with the embarrassing rapidity of youth, raking Geralt roughly along the edge of release until he grits his teeth with it, focusing on holding on, staying in that moment of readiness until he feels Jaskier begin to falter, and then it slips his hold, letting him drop over the edge with Jaskier’s name soundless on his lips as he finds release in his grip. His arms go tense and he tears a significant rent in Jaskier’s sheets, the sound of ripping fabric filling the space his quiet leaves. 

Again, Jaskier is the vocal one, praising and encouraging, bracing himself with one hand on Geralt's hip and the other on Geralt's cock and screaming 'Yes, yes, yes,' as he feels Geralt spend across his bed and his fingers, and screaming 'Fuck, fuck, fuck' when he follows after. 

They both tense and slowly relax, and Jaskier just drapes himself across Geralt's back. Jaskier says, "Hmm."

For once, Geralt feels like echoing the bard’s sentiment perfectly, and a brief conspiratorial feeling suggests that maybe that’s what this whole exercise was about, before he tips them both over with a rapidity that means the result is unavoidable and he drags Jaskier with him, leaving them settled on their sides with Jaskier as the outclassed big spoon. For a time, he’s quiet, catching his breath, and then he glances over his shoulder, displaying one half of Jaskier’s torn sheet. 

"Worth it," Jaskier says, and uses his breeches to clean up some of the mess between them before curling closer around the giant witcher.

He doesn’t apologize, just reaches back and pulls Jaskier closer, touching and petting the parts he can reach, awkwardly but with sincerity. He resolves not to screw this up again, and if Geralt runs on one thing, it’s resolve. Finally he says, “I’m going tomorrow. I’ll say goodbye before I do.”

"Okay. And at the end of term I'm coming after you," Jaskier says with equal gravity. He kisses Geralt's shoulder blade and tosses a blanket over them. "And the next time you say rude things to me I'm going to blame low blood sugar and give you a cookie. You still seeing Yennefer?"

He manages to make that sound nonchalant: Jaskier wasn't going to rock the boat after just getting the oaf back. The relationship is developing but they needn’t be _exclusive…_

Geralt makes a wordless noise, his boat unrocked by the question. He supposes the answer is ‘yes’ as much as _anyone_ is seeing Yen. The answer is complex, but Geralt is satisfied that it’s as complex on his end as it is on hers, even if in the end he’d like to think of himself as more of a danger, he knows better. “I doubt it would be safe to. Maybe eventually.”

He means, when she won’t immediately stab him out of anger for saving her life. He doubts that will be any time soon now that she’s figured out the method by which he dealt with the Djinn.

“Ah, well,” Jaskier sighs, trying not to let his jealousy show. He supposes he can’t begrudge Geralt a liaison for after he’s gone for good, anyway. And he isn’t going to complain about an open relationship. 

Geralt yawns. “Don’t be jealous. You’re aging better.”

That gets a bark of delighted laughter out of Jaskier, who forgets immediately that he was even a little bit disappointed. If nothing else, Geralt knows how to play him, too. “I knew that bitch was lying. Crow’s feet, indeed. I look _better_ today than I did at twenty-five.”

Geralt rumbles a sleepy-sounding agreement.

Jaskier squeezes Geralt in gratitude. “Sleep well, Witcher.” 

For once, Geralt does, deep and long and dreamless until the light comes in the morning.

-

Geralt doesn’t want to hear the picking of a lute when he reaches the last inn on the edge of Redania, but it’s the only way he’s getting a hot meal and a bed for the next fifty miles, so he endures. He hates even more that he can recognize the style of Jaskier’s music, even though this bard is a woman, a slight thing with dark hair and pretty eyes. 

_...I keep digging myself down deeper_ _  
_ _I won't stop 'til I get where you are_ _  
_ _I keep running when both my feet hurt_ _  
_ _I won't stop 'til I get where you are_ _  
_ _Oh, when you go down all your darkest roads_ _  
_ _I would have followed all the way to the graveyard._

He sighs and orders a meal and lodging for himself and Roach, and pays in coin, so no one even bothers him. Geralt suddenly remembers how Jaskier had promised him a ballad to beat him to the country’s border, and he wants to think that this isn’t a tune of Jaskier’s composition, and maybe it isn’t, but he also doesn’t want his child surprise or his fate, and he’s going to get those. 

_They say I may be making a mistake_ _  
_ _I would have followed all the way, no matter how far_  
_I know when you go down all your darkest roads_  
_I would have followed all the way to the graveyard._


	5. Chapter 5

Stupid of a witcher to get mauled by a group of common corpse eaters, but sometimes doing the right thing leads to the wrong result. 

He at least managed to hold his own and kill all the necrophages before collapsing from their toxin, so he’s probably only going to bleed to death if he doesn’t die of poison first.

Stupid way to go, a bunch of corpse eaters, right where you’d expect them. Probably the corpses he’d gotten injured protecting would draw more. Hopefully, Roach would take herself clear of the area; while necrophages preferred human meat they would eat anything.

When he wakes up again he’s in motion, and cognizant of dreaming, even as the images flee his thoughts quickly in favor of the inflamed pain in his thigh. Geralt reaches for it, groaning. 

“You didn’t have to take that literally, Geralt. The graveyard was a fucking metaphor. Stop moving.” 

Geralt growls, still trying to examine the injury. His whole body feels stiff and uncooperative, like rigor mortis is trying to set in before he’s dead. He manages a glance at it, and it looks terrible. Deadly, even. He paws for his bag, glancing up to see if Jaskier is really there or if he’s another hallucination or dream. It seems important to say, so Geralt does, “I heard your song.”

“On second thought, there’s no way I can possibly lift you, so you should actually—you what? Of course you did!” Jaskier beams. He’s on his knees at Geralt’s side, looking like he’s entirely capable of taking the situation well in hand as soon as he figures out how best to do that. Then he frowns. “I’m a little terrified that fate is using me as a mouthpiece. Plenty of things rhyme with ‘how far’! I could have said ‘bar’! Then we’d be in a much better position. We’d be cosying up to a fire with a warm beer instead of you dying of some kind of mummy rot in the woods. This is all my fault!” 

“Get my bag,” Geralt grunts, pawing around for it. He must be alive, it’s unlikely he’d ever hallucinate Jaskier panicking, even just before death. Besides, he hurts enough that he’s sure that he’s still alive. “And next time, rhyme better.”

“Well, fuck you, too. Glad you’re not feeling too poorly to insult me,” Jaskier says, but he gets the bag, rummaging through it for something that looks helpful to him, but of course it’s full of potions and nonsense he doesn’t understand. It has some oat cakes in it, and seeing them clenches his heart for some reason. “Er, alright, what’s in here? What am I looking for?” 

Geralt makes a face at him, and then takes the bag, rifling through it for one of the potions, which he drinks half of and pours the other half of over his thigh, immediately responding to the pain with a snarl as it sizzles and smokes. Then he tries to catch his breath, squinting at Jaskier. “You came early.”

He pauses for a long time, both hands on his thigh as the immediate sting fades, before he adds, heartfelt, “Thank you.”

“I thought, I have a graduate student, why not let them proctor the exams?” Jaskier replies easily, but he winces in sympathy. “Alright, do you have another of those potions? Where the hell did Roach get to?” 

“I sent her away,” Geralt explains, already feeling dizzy and weak again, like he’s been bleeding for a while and there isn’t enough blood in his body. He doesn’t have another of the potions, and he’s having trouble taking stock of what he does have, what might help and what would do irreversible harm to him in this state.

"Damn it." Jaskier looks around them nervously. “When is whatever bit you going to be back?” 

“Killed those. Wouldn’t put it past new ones to come sniffing around for my corpse, though.” He manages to lift a hand, rubbing his eyes. Everything seems too bright. “Nightfall. At nightfall.”

"Okay, okay," Jaskier says, realizing he has to take control of the situation and wishing, oddly, that Yennefer were here. "Easy, Geralt. We'll sort this." 

He looks through the bag again, but can't make heads or tails of it, except, "Water. Okay, you do have water. I need you to drink this, and then we're going to move."

He scrambles around behind Geralt, heaving him up so he's leaning back against his chest. "Alright? Drink."

Agitatedly, Geralt reaches up to pat the water away, but eventually consents to drink when Jaskier insists. The water tastes metallic in his mouth, but his body is greedy for it anyway. He’s distantly aware that there are sounds he can’t fully qualify. When he’s done drinking everything in the water skin, he rolls his eyes toward the sky and can’t quite focus. “What’s exploding?”

With a sinking feeling he finally manages to make heads and tails of his orientation, and supposes what’s exploding is Sodden. And...Yennefer is probably there, somewhere. He closes his eyes, trying to gather his thoughts, and then promptly passes out. 

“Exploding?” Jaskier asks, and then frowns. “God, even when you’re half dead your hearing is amazing.”

Grunting, Jaskier slings his own bag (smallish) and Geralt’s bag (larger) crosswise across his body. “Okay, Geralt. Here’s what’s going to happen. Are you listening to me? We’re going to get you on your feet. You’re going to lean on me and do your best to hop or shamble or whatever you can manage until we get over to my wagon. And later, you’ll thank me for having the foresight to bring a fucking wagon to carry your giant unconscious body. Okay? One—two— _ hup _ !” 

Geralt is jostled briefly back to consciousness by, well, the jostling. It interrupts dreams that are half memories, something about finding Borch with a bucket on his head (Geralt’s, not the dragon’s, though it makes about as much sense.) He isn’t  _ quite _ rendered sensible enough to be fully cooperative, but at least he isn’t hindering Jaskier any worse than he might have been.

Just as Jaskier dumps him in the wagon (the witcher is muttering “Yen, Yen,” and then seeming to call for his mother like a damned idiot), Roach has the unfortunate timing of finishing her grazing. Being damned tired of having gone around all night with her saddle and bridle on, and having thoroughly fouled the bit with her attempts to feed herself, she makes herself known behind Jaskier with an impatient shove of her nose and a whicker that suggests maybe the  _ bard _ can do something about her useless master’s bad timing. 

Jaskier lets out an unholy shriek, sure that the monsters are back, and it frightens all the horses and himself. It’s not  _ her _ fault she jumps the hell out of Jaskier, and jumps back herself, ears rotated backwards and eyes on him with her own peculiar sort of cunning that suggests she thinks less of him for jumping in the first place. 

“Damn it! Roach!” Jaskier swears, stamping one foot. “Don’t do that to me! Especially after I’ve done your work for you.  _ You  _ were supposed to look after him!”

When she’s sure no further outcry is coming out of Jaskier, first one ear then both rotate forward toward him, and then toward Geralt laid out on the cart like so many bags of potatoes, and she heaves a nearly-human (though still impressively horselike) sigh, and chews her bit, turning her expression pointedly on Jaskier with the clear ‘what next’ question on her features. 

Jaskier sighs, rubbing the huge mare’s nose. “Alright, I know, I’m tired, too.” 

He removes her saddle and bags (checks for more of that potion, but doesn’t see any), and uses them as a pillow to prop Geralt up. He tucks her saddle blanket around him, brushing hair back from his eyes, though there’s not much he can do for him until he can get him out of these woods. 

“Come on, girl, you’ll help us out? We need to get out of here and to some water, or civilization, or something,” Jaskier explains, as he hitches Roach up next to the other horse, who is completely dwarfed by the large mare. He digs something out of Geralt’s bag. “Look, I even have some horse breakfasts for you! Both of you. You’ll share, won’t you?” 

Quick as a flash, she takes one from his hand, chewing contentedly and making no attempt to maul Jaskier as he attaches the harness, so that’s probably going well. Of course she keeps one ear on him as he talks to her, being used to conversation. When he asks, she pulls in the traces, doing her best to check her long stride to stay in pace with her short companion.

“Atta girls,” Jaskier praises. The smaller horse, a gelding, grunts. “Oh, well, close enough, anyway.” 

Geralt drifts, dreaming of his mother, and sometimes rouses, stirring; asking after the farmer he’d saved, calling out names. Briefly, he thinks he dreams of Yennefer, their connection growing stronger as they both near death and then...veers away. Reeled in by some other destiny, the many strings he’s entangled in, some new tug. 

Roach seems to know where they’re going, and she pulls on until the full dark of night when all of a sudden, she just stops, and no amount of shaking the reins or shouting produces anything more than a sideways, distasteful look from the animal. 

“Alright, fine,” Jaskier relents, when he at least can hear a stream nearby. He has to unhook the horses, pray they won’t stray far, and tug the cart off the road himself. As he goes down to refill their canteens, he calls, “Doing alright back there, Geralt? Still alive?”

There’s no immediate answer forthcoming, though Geralt’s eyes are open and piercing the darkness, looking at something intently enough to make Jaskier worry, and occasionally Geralt makes an aborted movement, some sound in his throat. Roach, meandering down to drink from the stream, shares a look with Jaskier that almost seems to hold the same worry, and then her head jerks up suddenly and her ears strain toward Geralt as if there’s something there, just on the edge of her hearing. 

It’s more than vaguely spooky, especially when both the lanterns on the wagon suddenly go out, leaving everything in darkness. For a long minute, time seems to stand still, and if Geralt is sleeping, it’s troubled; if he’s awake, he’s insensate.

Then the lanterns flare up again, and Geralt sits up, suddenly possessed of some measure of his own clarity. He drops out of the wagon, onto his own feet in a stumble. His voice emerges in a clear sentence for once, though it’s an urgent growl. “We have to go to Sodden.” 

"Geralt!" Jaskier shrieks, like his witcher is possessed. "Geralt, no. You can barely—oof!"

He catches Geralt before his leg buckles under him. "Barely stand. Thank you for proving my point. It's not so often we stupid mortals get to be right." 

Geralt grunts, feeling dizzy. He spares a long, scrutinizing glance at Jaskier, one hand gripping the back of his shirt in a fist to keep his balance by leaning extremely heavily on the bard, and the other clamped against his thigh, which has started to look  _ less _ gangrenous, anyway. “You’re… really here.”

“Of course I am.” Jaskier guides Geralt back to the cart. "Why wouldn’t I be? Sit the fuck back down, now, please, and start making sense. Why must we go to Sodden, and at this hour? How are you suddenly alright again, I didn't do anything?”

Jaskier definitely doesn't ask if he had heard right and that Geralt had been calling out for his  _ mother _ . He isn’t aware witchers have mothers. 

“Didn’t you see her?” Geralt asks, now leaning on the cart but seeming somewhat unwilling to sit back down on it, as if knowing that when he stops moving he’s going to lose all his momentum. “Did you see where she went?” 

He certainly seems to be looking for  _ somebody _ , his yellow and keen eyes scanning the surrounding area, penetrating beyond the lamplight and into the darkness. But there’s only forest around him, and the words echoing in his ears, the tugging of the strings of fate. 

“Geralt,” Jaskier says patiently, touching the side of the witcher’s face tenderly and guiding their gazes together. “It’s just you and me here, and the horses. Who do you need to find?” 

“Visenna,” Geralt answers automatically, and then reaches up to cradle his aching temple with his fingers, shaking his head. He knows it’s wrong the instant he says it, and then corrects himself. “Cirilla. I think she’s near. And… Yennefer will be, too.” 

Geralt coughs; leans away from Jaskier to spit. The taste of herbs is still in his mouth. If this isn’t a dream, now, it hadn’t been, then. “We have to go there.”

“Okay, okay,” Jaskier says, like he’s trying to placate a drunk and dangerous person, but at least he’s earnest. “We will, we will absolutely go there. But you can hardly walk and the horses won’t move another step. Can we let them rest, please? I’ll go with you, I promise. Can’t it wait a few hours?” 

Geralt groans, giving Jaskier a long look that suggests he’ll rest when he’s  _ dead _ and not before, but when he starts to give Roach a reproachful look she snorts and trots off into the woods, taking her gelded companion with her. Geralt has conceded to her wisdom in the past, but does so begrudgingly now. “S’pose so. Help me find something to bandage this with.”

"Now you're speaking sense," Jaskier says, relieved. He has bandages in his pack, or at the very least clean hose that will do. "Let me wash it out, again. Unless it's too late to make a difference. And sit  _ back _ , witcher, if you faint I want you falling  _ into _ the cart."

If Jaskier’s words usually register as just bitchy, this last bit is inflected to sound like a direct order that will accept nothing less. He rinses the wound and even blots some of the black stuff out until the blood runs clear. This he wraps, with scholarly care if not practical efficiency. 

Geralt appreciates the efficiency if not the prodding, and the pain finally serves to clear his head rather than cloud his thoughts. He reaches to paw through his bag for water, and comes up with the waterskin, watching Jaskier work while he drinks, and then offering it to Jaskier to wash his hands with when he’s done. “Don’t let that stay on your skin.”

He hoists himself a little higher against the seatbox of the wagon, putting his shoulders against the firm surface, eyes still on Jaskier as if the bard might vanish at any time. “It was dangerous to come here.”

“Tell me about it, you look like Danger has made you her bitch, Geralt,” Jaskier says, scrambling up onto the cart beside the witcher. He unfurls another blanket and covers them both with it, hoping they’re far enough from danger here. He digs into his bag and emerges with some bread and cheese, and splits the meal with Geralt while he tells him about his travels. “It’s surprisingly easy to follow your trail, actually. Anyone you ask will tell you if a witcher’s been through, and which way he went. And maybe I got lucky guessing once or twice. You know I am very lucky.” 

He gives Geralt a soft smile that means something more for being softer. 

“I know,” Geralt agrees, letting Jaskier have the lion’s share of food, since his stomach feels touchy and unreasonable yet. “And I’m not surprised they’re willing to say. They all take special note of me to sing your ballads now.”

“Ha! Good, I always hope they do,” Jaskier hums, and tugs Geralt down against him to kiss him. 

He stays still, one hand still tellingly atop the injured leg, but he allows himself to lean against Jaskier’s shoulder, feeling the threads of exhaustion warring with his instincts to keep moving toward the battle. “I suppose it’s better than being the Butcher of Blaviken.”

“Much better,” Jaskier agrees, adjusting the huge man until he’s almost cradling him against his chest, though mostly the witcher’s head is in his lap. Geralt is stiff in his arms, like he’s out of practice being held, and Jaskier wonders what kind of mother Geralt had been calling out to that had let this happen to her son. He tries a hand over Geralt’s hair, and when Geralt doesn’t complain he keeps stroking it, like he might put a wolf go to sleep like this. He tries humming, too, and when Geralt doesn’t immediately tell him to shut up, he takes that as a win and continues.

_ “I've been running through the jungle _ _  
_ _ I've been running with the wolves _ _  
_ _ To get to you, to get to you _ _  
_ _ I've been down the darkest alleys _ _  
_ _ Saw the dark side of the moon _ _  
_ _ To get to you, to get to you _ _  
_ _ I've looked for love in every stranger _ __  
_ Took too much to ease the anger _ _  
_ __ All for you, yeah, all for you.”

Geralt, after a time, nudges Jaskier with his elbow. “Don’t you sing any normal songs anymore?”

He means the usual tavern fare; strident heartfelt and clueless odes to mermaid tits, or faceless farmgirls given to tumbling in the hay, or even a forty-six verse monstrosity with barely contained ribald lyrics that invited drunken patrons to make up their own variations. Instead, the bard finds something endlessly fascinating in documenting each of his relationships in a variety of aspects that would make any chronicler jealous.

Jaskier shrugs. “Maybe I sold out.” 

He grins and curls an arm around Geralt, laying a hand on his chest and making sure the blanket is covering enough of him. He has to really toss it to get it over his feet about six miles away. 

“She rarely sang to me,” Geralt cuts off any protest, sensing with his usual sort of alacrity (and almost supernatural understanding of the quiet pauses of others) exactly what’s on Jaskier’s mind. “My mother. But I did know her, a little. I would swear she was just here, healing me.”

“Well, you were calling out to someone,” Jaskier allows. “If she was  _ here  _ here, I didn’t see her. But who knows with your type.”

“Not even I know,” Geralt says, though he’s sure Visenna had been here enough to answer his questions.

He pauses, tapping a finger against Geralt’s heartbeat. “We’ll find them, tomorrow. Cirilla, Yennefer. I’ll help you.” 

“Be careful,” Geralt warns, sounding distant again already. “Or Destiny will take a liking to you, too.”

“I hope not,” Jaskier said. “You know how afraid I am of commitment.” 


	6. Chapter 6

It’s some months before they’re cohesive enough as a group—himself, Jaskier, and Cirilla, all together—to return to the road. 

There comes a point where Geralt is finally out of coin (he never finds himself in a plentitude of it to begin with) and he has to return to work. Lucky—or unlucky, for him, mostly—there are tales of a Koschey being discovered in its lair, and the difficulty and danger of destroying such a nearly immortal monster before it grows even older and even closer to true invulnerability demands a Witcher. Even one just recently healed enough to stand steadily during sword practice with his newly adopted child of surprise. 

It’s over  _ both _ their objections that he insists they remain in town at the alehouse (and he manages  _ not _ to spit his drink out when Ciri insists on apple juice in a manner that will not be refused) while Geralt goes to deal with the creature.

“It must be defeated by a witcher,” he explains. “ _ And _ it will take everything I have to kill it, since they have a weak spot smaller than your...pinky.”

His language at least has taken a turn for the better, though Ciri always looks at him like she knows better when he avoids swearing. 

“I know what you were going to say,” Jaskier protests. “Hell, Ciri knows what you were going to say. And I for one am offended.” 

“I’m just  _ trying  _ not to think about it,” Ciri says, jutting her jaw out in annoyance. 

“Stop vocal frying, you’ll destroy your voice,” Jaskier scolds. “Look, Geralt, if it’s dangerous, then all the more reason to have us along. Ciri might be able to roar it to death and if you want a ballad about it, I’m going to have to be there. Your after-action-reports leave much to be desired.” 

Geralt gives both of them a long, withering look that seems to lose effectiveness more rapidly than his spells do against some stronger monsters, and instead of arguing, simply firms his jaw and shakes his head, refusing to be moved. “Stay. Here. Write a ballad about something in town.”

“Ugh. You’re boring.” 

“I hate you!” 

With that, he leaves them behind, and if he expends the energy on a spell to slip away before either of them can protest, leaving them blinking at the spot he formerly occupied, it’s probably not the last time he’ll use magic to win an argument when he’s facing down the most unreasonable members of his adopted family.

Ciri sticks her hands on her hips and squints at the spot he occupied, then at Jaskier. “Well, he could have at least left us something to  _ do _ . I hate you, too, by the way.”

“No thirteen-year-old girl should be happy with her parents all the time,” Jaskier says, by way of comfort. He takes a pull on his ale and stares her down. How to keep her entertained, much less him? “Well, all right. We could try one of several ways to raise hell in this town, though you’re probably too young for at least three of them. You could learn a new instrument, if I could only get a hold of a viola da gamba. Alternatively, I can teach you swear words in several languages, or we can come up with an act and get some serious coin for a performance. And then we could go shopping.” 

Both Jaskier and Ciri quite enjoyed shopping. 

“You don’t have to babysit me.” 

“And  _ you  _ don’t have to babysit me,” Jaskier replies. “But I like to be strategic with my getting myself into trouble, and if, say, I end up in a gaol cell and Geralt is the only one who can get me out and  _ you’re not there also _ , he’s likely to leave me there. 

Ciri giggles, possibly at imagining Jaskier behind bars.

“Don’t flatter yourself, he’d ditch you, too, if you got into trouble without me.” 

“We could also...not get into trouble?” 

“You’re just as boring as your father, then.” 

“My  _ father  _ was a hedgehog half his life,” Ciri points out, putting her hands on her hips and rolling her eyes at Jaskier. “But I take your point.”

If she pauses for effect after making the pun, it goes unrewarded and she sighs. “I’d settle just for some food. Did he leave us anything to eat?”

She digs first into Geralt’s bags, though most of them went with him and Roach and she finds only dirty clothes so she refuses to dig very far, instead grabbing Jaskier’s pack to pull him off balance so he can’t stop her from looking through it—she is learning her tricks well, under Geralt’s tutelage.

“Nothing but oat cakes,” she sighs. “Again.”

"Maybe he gets constipated a lot," Jaskier muses. "Not just emotionally. I'm just saying he always has oats on hand. He could eat a fucking vegetable, but nooo…"

Jaskier’s language has  _ not _ improved since taking Ciri under his wing with Geralt. 

"I like vegetables," Ciri says. "Besides, they’re obviously for the horse. We could try singing for some coin. It's better than the orphan routine. I'm getting a little old for that."

"Right, it's the most reliable option." Jaskier looks around at the bar patrons with an appraising eye. He was trying to teach Ciri how to read crowds, so here was an opportunity for a lesson: "What kind of song do you think they want to hear?"

She follows his gaze around the tavern and it is… not a promising lot. There are two fishermen studiously avoiding her gaze, and she can see one person in rags in the corner, getting the occasional warning glare from the tavern proprietress. 

“I get the feeling they’d be more entertained by beating us with your lute,” she grumbles to herself. “But we could try a shanty and hope to draw in more customers? Then maybe we can reassure them that they’ve invested wiseley with some tale of Geralt’s prowess. The  _ monster hunting _ kind I mean, half the townsfolk at the last place delighted in telling me about how much lust a ‘witch man’ has, if you even so much as look at one.”

“Ah, don’t I know it,” Jaskier sighs dreamily. 

“Gross.” 

“You’re right. And you have a good eye. We’ll try a shanty and then go for a walk. Make them beg us to come back.” 

“Or make them glad we’re gone.” 

“No faith, no faith,” Jaskier sighs. “We need to work on your optimism. Oh, I know one! ‘Ladies of Vengerberg’!”

“Not sure I know this one…”

“Oh, I’ve got to change the words up, you know. Maybe Yennefer will hear it and get her dander up.” 

Ciri looks at him with wide eyes. “You really are mad.”

Jaskier is already strumming, and Ciri admits she knows the song. 

“What would you prefer?”

“‘Ladies of Cintra.’ Like the song’s  _ supposed  _ to go!”

“You’re no fun. Now remember what I said about harmonizing: 

_ “Farewell and adieu to you, Cintran Ladies _ _  
_ _ Farewell and adieu to you, ladies o’ Cintra! _ __  
_ For we've received orders for to sail for Redania _ _  
_ __ But we hope in a short time to see you again!”

Despite the bouncy tune and Ciri’s excellent harmonizing, both fishermen get up by mutual agreement and leave the tavern, without so much as a glance back. They don’t even throw any food, either. Ciri stops singing and stamps her foot in frustration. “No appreciation for the arts.”

“They might be lying in wait to beat me up with my lute when we leave,” Jaskier says with a helpless shrug. “You’ll have to do your cub thing at them.” 

But from the corner where the ragged woman is sitting, a faint, rattling applause greets them, and the poor beggar approaches just as the tavern master goes to fetch her broom, likely to chase them all out with it.

“Fine song, sir and madam, and I’m sure your voices serve ye,” the beggar says, without looking either of them in the eye. She’s bent nearly double with what could be age or a hunched back, it’s difficult to tell. “Only I’ve no fine voice or finer instrument; could ye have a little pity on a poor hungry beggar? I’ve not eaten in some days and while it’s not much, I could reward ye with sommatt that’ll do ye prosperous.”

Ciri looks obviously concerned by the approach, suddenly again a princess who never encountered anyone who was  _ poor  _ before, but Jaskier takes it all in stride. “My good woman, as you are the only soul in this tavern who appreciates a song, it’s certainly no good that you go hungry.”

He rummages in his coinsack, thinking about lying about how much money he has and saying ‘Oh, dear, only two coins left, but you can have them, my dear,’ but it seems he really only  _ does  _ have two coins left. His smile is a little strained, worrying how he’s going to feed Ciri without resorting to paying for something on Julian Alfred Pankratz of Oxenfurt’s credit, but he supposes they’ll make do. 

“Jaskier—” Ciri begins, but he pats her knee to shush her. 

“Well we’re sadly out of anything remotely edible, but if you’re partial to oat cakes, you can have ours,” Jaskier offers, “and the last two coins in my pouch. Maybe if you order something the innkeeper won’t be so upset we scared off his customers, eh?” 

“Oh, thank ye,” she says, with a rasping and genuine enthusiasm, obviously grateful even for the two copper pennies and a stale oatcake. “Bless ye and may the gods keep ye safe. I’ll sing praises from here to the capital of your generosity, and…I have this for you.”

"Well there's no need for—" Jaskier begins.

From within some hidden fold of her garment she produces a perfectly average looking burlap sack.

“A...bag,” Ciri says, trying to keep her tone in check. 

“Not just any bag,” the beggar woman says, looking up at last to reveal her pox-ridden features and unsettling grin. She presses the ‘precious’ item into Jaskier’s hands. “It’s a sack. It can hold anything, you know.”

“An…  _ empty _ bag,” Ciri says, and this time the faint disdain creeps in. How she  _ misses _ living in the palace with her grandmother, sometimes, even if the Lioness had been mostly wrong in her assessment of Geralt. 

"Right! You know, I was just saying to my  _ daughter _ here the other day that I was in need of a good sack," Jaksier says gamefully. As a thespian, he is, of course, always ready to go along with a scene, even if it's with a crazy woman. The number one rule of improvisation is to never say ‘no’ to anything. And mad people write the best dialogue, Jaskier has found. "So this couldn't come at a better time. Thank you."

The bag doesn't even smell, so Jaskier will call this a win. 

Ciri’s still not sure how she feels about her sudden unanimous adoption by both a witcher  _ and _ a poet, except that she’s grateful that neither of them is both in one. But she snaps her teeth closed and watches the beggar woman cackle her way out of the tavern after exchanging one of their precious coins for bread, and munching one of the few remaining oatcakes. 

“Well, I suppose that’s a good deed for the day,” Ciri says, taking the sack from Jaskier and inspecting it to reveal that so far as she can tell, it’s a perfectly ordinary sack. “Congratulations on what fate’s bestowed you,  _ Dad _ , I suppose all our troubles are—”

She lets loose a surprised yelp when, upon turning the obviously empty sack inside-out, a perfectly preserved wedge of cheese, loaf of bread, crock of honey, and then a  _ live goose _ emerge, honking and squawking into the tavern commons room. 

“Er,” Jaskier says, standing up. “Wait, she had an entire  _ goose  _ and was going hungry?” 

“Oi! Don’t leave me here with this!” Ciri yelps, but Jaskier is already out the door. 

The beggar woman, who took about seventeen minutes to get from the bar to the door, has disappeared completely in less than one. 

“Fuck,” Jaskier says. 

“HONK,” the goose agrees, clipping him in the head with one of its wings as it flaps by him out the door, Ciri making only a clumsy effort to catch the thing.

“Are they  _ always _ this much trouble when they’re alive?” she demands, shoving the sack back into Jaskier’s hands as she goes chasing after the goose. Finally, frustrated with the thing flapping and jumping everywhere, she draws a dagger from her belt, clearly intending to throw it. “Help me catch this thing, Jask, and then maybe we can trade it for food that’s already dead.”

“Nonsense, my girl!” Jaskier says. “You’re not thinking clearly. Obviously, we should keep it alive and make Geralt butcher it for us when he returns. Also, it still might belong to that old woman…” 

Jaskier peers about him, but there’s still no sign of the woman. “Damn it,” he swears, and then, frustratedly at the honking goose, he shouts, “ _ Will you just get back in the bag, damn you?! _ ”

To his utter bafflement, the goose stops squawking and jumps into the bag. 

Jaskier and Ciri stare at each other. 

Then at the bag. 

“What the  _ fuck _ just happened.” 

“It got in the bag,” Ciri says, just as bewildered. “How did you make it get in the bag?”

Of course, when she grabs the opening of the bag and peers inside, the sack appears utterly empty, so she thrusts her arm in and reaches all the way to the bottom, and it still seems empty. “And where did it go after being in the bag? Jaskier, did you just  _ make a deal  _ with some kind of wandering witch?”

“What? Me? No! I don’t make deals, I’m not an idiot like your father. Er, either of them, actually. This is just. Was probably. A magic goose. We’ll ask Geralt about it,” Jaskier says, his mind hastily trying to work through the magical problem by shutting it down. He carefully wraps up the bag (it goes entirely flat), and tucks it into his shirt. Then he offers Ciri a hand. “Well, there’s daylight wasting. We have a routine to rehearse.” 

“You don’t want to eat the other food that came out of the bag?” she asks, squinting at Jaskier and thinking he’s being even more squirrelly than usual, but experience is teaching her that’s not uncommon when Jaskier is feeling particularly unsatisfied (or worried about something). But she sighs, and supposes that he’s right. There’s no sense worrying about old ladies and their mysterious geese at the moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This of course is a setup to the inclusion (in a fairly typical witcher fashion) of one of my favourite fairy tales, 'The Soldier and Death', which if you're not familiar with is a very fun old Russian tale. We just thought it would be fun to do to Jaskier.


	7. Chapter 7

It takes a full day before Geralt returns from the hunt, a fair amount fouler than he left off for it. He and Roach both are covered in blue and now-setting blood, and the creature he drags behind him is some unholy magical combination of spider and crab. Geralt collects his pay from the alderman, and leaves him to dispose of the disgusting thing however he sees fit, stalking into the tavern to find that Jaskier and Ciri have finally managed to gather their crowd and regale them with some sort of overblown version of one of his adventures.

Geralt, sodden and with his white hair dyed blue by the monstrous blood and a faint limp that promises to be worse in private, looks like the raucous cheer he’s greeted with is the last thing in the entire world he’d like to deal with at the moment. (And that includes the chance to face another fiendishly tricky monster.)

He picks up someone’s beer, about-faces, and marches right back out of the tavern to drink it. 

At the end of their song, Ciri and Jaskier swarm him, bringing him back inside and sitting on either side of Geralt, offering beer (Jaskier) and food (Ciri). They both kiss his cheeks. And they look...very well-kept. 

Geralt begins to bristle at the sudden invasion of his solitary space, but they’re both radiating such good cheer, and he hasn’t eaten since he’s left them so he accepts both offerings, though he strips off his befouled gloves, and actually takes the precaution of inspecting his hands to make sure none of the blue blood has reached them.

“You’re not going to believe this, Geralt, but we actually have a room and a bath all laid out for you,” Jaskier says. 

“And some new clothes!” Ciri chirps. “We went shopping.” 

“We had a bit of random good luck,” Jaskier explains. “And a surprisingly appreciative audience, once they got to know us. Your Ciri is a charmer.” 

Geralt, digging into his food before he makes an ass of himself by yelling at either of them, is listening despite his silence and focus on eating, though he has to interject, mouth full. 

“ _ Your  _ Ciri is a charmer,” he swallows, with effort. “Mine backs her charm up with knowing a man’s vital weak points.”

“Well, using half of that skillset, since you wouldn’t let us come hunting with you…” Ciri begins, but she looks Geralt over and seems not to mind so much when she sees what an obvious and disgusting ordeal he’s been through. “But I did practice my forms, too, after a good night’s rest.”

“Well done,” Geralt says, because it’s obvious that they have done well for themselves, and he does his best to give his sparse praise at least a little more freely than he’d received it himself, even if sometimes he stumbles over the delivery of it. 

However, there’s something about the chipperness that surrounds their success that makes Geralt just a little suspicious. “Should I be worried they’re going to run us out of town?” 

He hardly minds, since he’s been paid at least. He would normally leave the money with Jaskier, but it’s just as beslimed as the rest of him and he doubts the bard would appreciate it. 

“Hardly,” Jaskier says, jangling a coin purse of his own. It’s not that full, but it’s fuller than when they parted. “We’re stimulating the economy and stirring hearts, here. And meanwhile, you’ve made everyone safer! They should erect a statue of us.” 

“Please don’t say ‘erect,’” Ciri complains, a teenager again. 

Jaskier grins at her. 

“They shouldn’t,” Geralt says, blandly, but he is grateful that he’ll actually get to make use of the amenities promised. He has no idea if he’s going to like the new clothes offered, but they’ll at least be cleaner than what he’s wearing currently. He appears to be too tired to really ask them any questions about their unexpected windfall, but he trusts that since they’re not imprisoned, he’s less interested in the details than he is in the fact that they’re safe and happy.

He makes a noise in his chest that suggests he’s too tired to form proper words, having made much expense of strength and magics, and then dragged the thing all the way back. 

"Aren't you going to tell us how your venture went?" Jaskier prompts.

“If you wanted to go ahead upstairs, I’ll stay down here and keep the crowd occupied,” Ciri says brightly, a little too knowingly. “I’m sure you’ll want all the details of his hunt for your compositions, Jaskier, so I can see to it there aren’t any interruptions. I’m sure we won’t want to leave until tomorrow anyway?”

Geralt finishes his ale while side-eying her in a way that suggests he knows exactly what she’s doing, but he has no real method for protesting it, so, when food’s done, he pushes back from the table, pats Ciri carefully on the shoulder with his cleaner hand, like he does when he can’t quite get ‘you did good, kid’ together in words, and heads upstairs. 

He hears Jaskier reminding her that she's not allowed any boys in her room, at least until she gets their full names and addresses so her father can pay them a visit, and it is with loud teenage groans that she chases him upstairs after Geralt.

"Well that was fun. I hope you don't think you left me behind with the less dangerous job," Jaskier says, barging into the room after Geralt and watching him strip down. 

Geralt turns, still covered head to toe in gore, and  _ looks _ at Jaskier for a long time, as he undoes the ties at the collar of his shirt. His stare gains intensity until Jaskier at least has the good sense to look somewhat abashed about what he just said, and then Geralt finishes stripping his shirt, which hits the floor with a disgusting smack. “I suppose it’s dangerous to leave you anywhere. But I see you’ve both still got your eyes and all your limbs. What adventure did you get up to? It’s clearly served you better than me.”

His pants make nearly as filthy a squelching sound as his boots, and Geralt doesn’t even get in the presented tub, before he sits down on a low bench with a bucket of water to get the worst off before he even dares the depths; it’ll be just as bad if he has to  _ soak _ in it, and it seems the blue may have stuck fairly persistently in his hair. 

“Well, we came into a magic disappearing goose, actually, on accident, so that was fun, and worth 2  _ gold  _ coins and a meal to the farmer we sold her to. And those two coins got us another night at the pub singing, by which time people had told their friends, and so we started making a killing. Here, let me do that,” Jaskier says, taking the washcloth from Geralt to try to help rid him of some of the blue grime. 

“...A magic goose,” Geralt takes the first part of the information first, as Jaskier tries to separate the grime from his back, and Geralt upends another bucket of water over his efforts to help loosen the sticky stuff. “Did it lay golden eggs?”

“No, no, it just disappeared the once,” Jaskier replies, waving a hand. “Anyway, I think we shouldn’t stay much longer, because I definitely overheard one person say that our Ciri looked like Princess Cirilla, and I don’t know how far that will get, so I’m glad you’re back.” 

This is more serious, and Geralt nods. “We’ll move on quickly. Roach needs a rest, first. I wouldn’t mind a proper one, either.”

Giving an expansive yawn that ends in a grunt as he shifts the wrong way on all the bruises now revealing themselves to be blooming green and purple once the blue comes away, Geralt lets himself be soothed by Jaskier scrubbing fit to take a layer of his skin off. 

“I found the thing in a cave, and it wouldn’t be lured out for anything. It might have had advantage in the dark, if I didn’t see in it, but the small space didn’t do me any favors. You have to get up onto the thing’s back to get into the weak spot. Is that detail enough?”

“Ew,” Jaskier says, trying to work a clump of something out of Geralt’s hair. “I think I’m going to have to cut part of your hair here. Yes, I suppose I can work with that. What would you say the most dire part of the fight was? And the most daring? Need those for a song.” 

“Well, probably when it smashed me against the roof of the cave repeatedly,” Geralt says, wincing as Jaskier pulls his hair. “It’s lucky I’m tough. You can make up the most daring part, you always do anyway.”

He gives a tug on Geralt’s hair. “Ah, sorry! Good news is, I don’t need to cut your hair. Eugh. Get in the bath. I’ll order you another if you need it.” 

Agreeing thoroughly with the sentiment, Geralt grabs the soap and submerges in the water, and despite all his rinsing it nearly immediately takes on a bluish hue. When he comes up again, grunting at how hot it is against his battered body, Geralt feels nearly faint with the sudden heat, but it’s almost welcome. “It’s best you didn’t come. The cave was all full of human bones. It’s not like you would have been able to see anything, anyway.”

“Eugh,” Jaskier shudders. “You know, I am grateful you take on the nasty bits, even if you run off and leave me changing the diapers and dealing with her when she’s colicky and teenagery.” 

“She usually says the same thing about you, when she gets the chance,” Geralt retorts. 

“Rude!”

Geralt scrubs the bar of soap into his hair and comes up with gunky blue suds, but at least that means it’s probably coming out. He’s still  _ tired _ , but at least he’s starting to feel better.

Jaskier sits on a stool by the tub to continue washing Geralt’s hair. “And I’m glad you’re back. I’d kiss you, but you are definitely going to need a second bath.” 

“Don’t blame you,” Geralt says. “Is it all coming out?”

He means out of his hair, he’s pretty sure he’s mostly getting it off his skin and out from under his nails. When his hands are clean, he reaches up and tugs Jaskier down over his shoulder and kisses his cheek, gently, by way of thanks. Then he yawns again. “Maybe the second bath in the morning.”

“I can’t wait that long to kiss you,” Jaskier replies, brushing his hair. “But, yes, actually, it is coming out. I think you’ll live, and your pretty hair, too.” 

It’s perhaps the first time anyone has called his hair pretty, beyond obvious sarcasm or insult. He lets Jaskier finish, and then gets out of the filthy, blue tinted water to see to his teeth in the ewer, glad to find the water there fresh enough to brush with. When he’s done, the bruises on his body are revealed but it’s not the worst he’s come back with, so he sweeps Jaskier into his arms with only a faint wince. “I think we’ll both live, poet, and I suppose you’ll get a song out of it.”

“Oh, most certainly,” Jaskier agrees. He plucks up a herbal salve and forces Geralt to sit, so he can rub it into some of his cuts and scrapes, and lightly over his bruises, already humming a new tune. “Luckily a lot of words rhyme with ‘blue.’ Was it blue on the outside? Or just its insides?” 

“By the time I was done with it it’s insides weren’t inside anymore,” Geralt reveals. “But it was sort of… brownish. With blue spots.”

He grunts, sitting up sharply as Jaskier finds a particularly sensitive bruise, and then reaches for Jaskier to pull their bodies together so he can manhandle the bard onto the bed, pinning him down into place so he’ll stop fussing. “I also emerged with blue spots.”

"Sorry!" Jaskier says, bracing for impact like someone used to  _ pretending _ to be afraid of his big scary witcher lover—because he is, because he goes lax like a puppy grabbed by the scruff of his neck before he decides consciously to put up a cursory struggle just to avoid seeming easy. "Didn't mean to hurt you. Blue spots, eh?"

“Some black ones, some blue ones,” Geralt agrees, holding his strength in check as he presses a kiss to Jaskier’s neck, though he still holds on tightly enough that the Bard can pretend to struggle.

Jaskier finds one on his shoulder that doesn't look too bad, and kisses it. His eyes are huge in the candlelight, gazing up at Geralt like he wants to give him the stars but hasn't found a star worthy of gifting him yet. His voice is a whisper when he speaks. "You want to go to bed?"

Geralt swallows audibly, looking at Jaskier like he hasn’t seen him a thousand times before, and though he’s _exhausted,_ he wants Jaskier at least close to him. It feels like it’s a reward for coming back safe for once, something more than his miserable life. “Well, I don’t want to fight another monster.”

“I’m insulted,” Jaskier says, voice still soft. He pushes Geralt over on the bed and settles on top of him, not pressing too hard in any one spot. He kisses him slowly and lovingly, but doesn’t push for more, just tucking blankets around the both of them. “I think you’re grumpy and you need to go to sleep.” 

“Most likely,” Geralt says, easing his arms around Jaskier’s middle and pulling him close. He really does think that maybe he’ll rally to the task, but the soft bed and warmth and welcome—all rare things for Geralt to begin with—lull him down into sleep too rapidly to prove otherwise. At least he doesn’t snore  _ too _ terribly.


	8. Chapter 8

The question of the disappearing-reappearing goose registers in Geralt’s mind, but doesn’t stick. Part of him thinks Jaskier and Ciri are lying, or mistaken.

They find another job nearly immediately after waking the next morning, and it’s with dutiful regret that Geralt accepts it. However, it’s a smaller bounty, and a more predictable target, so he assures Ciri she’ll get a chance to practice against it. Her obvious excitement makes him feel a little bit like a mother big cat must, taking overly enthusiastic cubs out hunting, and he wonders distantly if Vesemir ever felt this way before he decides not to speculate. 

“We should find you both horses,” Geralt decides at last, looking at the pair and their equipment. It’s not much, but enough to be taxing. It was slow enough when it was just he and Jaskier. 

“ _ Now _ he agrees with me,” Jaskier complains loudly to Ciri. “I’ve tried before, you know. He always insults my horses and tells me walking builds character. You know he hardly ever rides Roach? She’s really more of a pet…” 

“She’s an equal partner,” Geralt corrects. “And if you didn’t pick the most ridiculous horse…”

Of course Jaskier had a tendency to gravitate toward flashy horses that practically screamed ‘steal me’ and that cost three times their worth as far as how good they would be in battle. Though the women might swoon over them, which served Jaskier’s purpose, it wouldn’t save him in a pinch. 

“The gear is getting heavy. We could get just one horse to carry it, if you feel your character has been served by walking…” Geralt suggests, if Jaskier wants to be stubborn about it. 

“Oh, no, no, not at all. I think I’m the worse for it, honestly. Some of us do experience the passage of time, you know, and I’m not as young as I used to be.” Jaskier stretches dramatically. “So, fine, fine. You pick out the horses this time, honey.” 

This earns him a glare, but Geralt accepts the responsibility anyway. He knows how to pick a sound horse that won’t draw the eye of every horse thief from here to Rivia, anyway. He hands the reins to Ciri (he’s learned not to trust the bard with them, given that Jaskier once let someone almost rob him), and begins his investigation of several farmer’s fields.

“You’re going to end up with a plow horse for sure,” Ciri says, grinning to Jaskier as she watches without budging from the center of town. 

“Oh, I’m sure I shall. He does it just to spite me, you know—”

“—Because he’s hopelessly in love with you, yes, you told me,” Ciri says, and in spite of her teasing her smile is fond. “He’s not very good at showing affection, is he?”

“No, he’s—” Jaskier begins, and then frowns. “Er, that is, he tries. Mostly you can tell when he’s trying. But no, he’s not very good at it. You have to give him the benefit of the doubt. If he tells you you’re looking fat it’s usually a compliment that you’ve put on healthy weight, by the way, if he hasn’t already said something like that to you.” 

“No, not to me,” Ciri giggles. Then she peers after him, too. “But you’re right. He does try.” 

“You see? We just have to  _ help _ him by interpreting his—”

They have no warning when something suddenly hits him from behind. Jaskier is suddenly on his face, and Ciri screams. She composes herself quickly, grabbing for the silver sword Geralt had insisted she carry from the start, though she feels woefully unprepared to face this monster in front of her.

It  _ is _ trying to eat Jaskier, though, snapping it’s large mandibles at the back of his head until she sweeps her sword at it clumsily. 

“Jaskier, get  _ out _ of there!” Ciri can hardly try to chop the thing’s head off with the risk of hitting her friend. 

“I—ahh!” Jaskier cries, thrashing unhelpfully and trying to protect his lute more than himself, getting nicked by a claw or tooth for his efforts. “Augh, damn you!” 

Ciri must have stabbed it, because it roars and draws off of him, enough that Jaskier is able to scramble away as it rounds on Cirilla. 

Now that Jaskier has some space between it, he can get a good look at the thing, taking mental notes for the ballad. The monster is large, and hairy, and has huge horns that would go right through Ciri if she weren’t so agile, dodging and parrying with her narrow blade. Gosh, Geralt would be proud. Speaking of—

“GERALT!” Jaskier shouts, wondering why the stupid witcher hasn’t come back yet. Hasn’t he heard the screaming? 

There’s no sign of Geralt at least immediately, but Ciri is managing to keep the thing occupied, poking and slashing where she can, but it seems to know how to parry her blows with its horns, and her strength can’t just chop them off the way Geralt’s enhanced witcher abilities allow him to do. She at least makes a serious dent in several places. 

“Go and find him, I’ll keep it distracted,” she calls to Jaskier. “Unless you have any other ideas!”

“I—I don’t—I can’t leave you alone!” Jaskier cries, shrugging out of his pack in his panic to get away. The pack opens and spills its contents, like they might provide an idea. But no, he’s useless in a fight, this isn’t going to work, his choices are watch Ciri die or leave to try to get Geralt in time before she dies whether he’s watching or not. Or, he supposes, he could die, too. 

“Jaskier!” she shrieks, as the beast hooks a horn in under the guard of her blade and disarms her. She takes a deep breath to do her little lioness roar, and Jaskier ducks, because of course, from this angle, she might catch Jaskier in it, or throw the beast on top of him. She hesitates. 

But somehow Jaskier’s hands land on the bag, and he’s picking it up, and the words are out of his mouth before he has any other ideas. “ _ Get in the bag _ .”

And—and it  _ does _ . Somehow, miraculously, that works. Howling in rage, the beast he doesn’t even have a name for is sucked in, much more dramatically than the goose.

He looks at Ciri, who looks at him, eyes and mouth wide, ready to scream. 

“...Guess it wasn’t the  _ goose  _ that was magic, after all.” 

Her teeth snap shut with a click, and she looks at the still-apparently-empty bag. “Okay, but now what do we do with it?”

They don’t have to wait long, the sound of hooves striking the ground at a gallop as Geralt returns with his sword drawn, riding the promised plow horse full tilt, with his sword drawn. He draws up short, takes in the situation, and begins looking for the direction the monster went. “What was it? Where did it go?”

Ciri looks at Jaskier. “Well, I’m not sure what it  _ was _ , but Jaskier caught it.”

Geralt wheels on Jaskier, doing his best to banish his immediate disbelief from his face. His pupils dilate as if he’s searching for something that’s difficult to see in the light, searching Jaskier for signs of whatever it is he’s supposed to have caught. 

“I, I, I—” Jaskier begins, helplessly. He’s shaking like a leaf, not remotely cool under fire—or after fire, either. He clutches the bag in a white-knuckled fist like the monster will escape back out of it. “It, er, it was big. Horns. Gone now.” 

He seems to be saying this to reassure himself more than anything. 

Ciri gives Geralt a significant look and goes to retrieve her sword. 

Geralt swings down from the horse and gives a look toward Roach as if she might explain the situation, but she’s just retreated to the edge of the clearing and stands looking just as confused by the events she witnessed as everyone else seems to be. He takes a deep breath and sheaths his sword, going to Jaskier. Obviously he’s been knocked about a little, and there’s a cut on his forearm, but he doesn’t look badly injured, nor does Ciri. 

“Can you tell it to me like a story?” Geralt suggests, reaching out to put his hand on Jaskier’s shoulder reassuringly, feeling his pulse pounding. He’s still gripping the burlap bag, holding it out away from his body, and Geralt gently pries his fingers off to have a look inside, in case it was a very  _ tiny _ thing with horns and fur (which can still be fully terrifying and quite dangerous, in his experience). The bag is empty. 

Jaskier takes a shuddering breath, but then glares at Geralt underneath his hair and long lashes. “Don’t patronize me. I was really scared!” 

“I’m  _ not, _ ” Geralt starts, but then he closes his mouth and shakes his head; no sense arguing. 

Jaskier laughs a little, then, a giddy sound, and moves in, like he’s expecting a hug. He’s holding onto the cut on his arm, but it has already mostly clotted. After a careful breath, he begins. “Well, it came from behind. Knocked me flat, you know, I think—I might have cut my arm on a stone when I fell. But...that’s not the actual beginning of the story, is it?” 

He really can’t help himself, can he? 

Geralt drops the bag on the ground to see to Jaskier’s injury now that his attention has been called to it, but it’s nothing too terrible. Then, with an effort not to make it awkward, he pulls Jaskier against him, hoping it’s enough to comfort him. 

“How’d you drive it off?” Geralt asks, looking at Ciri. “Are you alright?”

She nods, gravely, and then points to the sack.

“It was afraid of the bag?” Geralt wonders, trying to scrape around in his memory to figure out what might be averse to burlap. 

“Are you going to let me tell this story, or not?” Jaskier snaps. “A-as I was saying. The beginning was when we met the old woman in the pub. She was hungry, and I gave her, well, I mean, it was only a few coins and some stale bread! She acted like I had given her everything, and she gave me, er, well, this bag. Which in hindsight is probably magical, or cursed, and she was probably a witch of some flavor.” 

Geralt looked like he wanted to interrupt, which was rare for him, and Ciri  _ certainly  _ did, so Jaskier barrelled on: “I didn’t want to believe it was true, the magic of it, when the goose fell out. And hopped back in when told. And—and—” 

“And you knew it would work on  _ that  _ thing?!” Ciri demanded. 

“Melitele’s  _ tits _ , no!” Jaskier replied, with another giddy laugh. “I just, er,  _ did  _ it. I don’t know if it can get back out or—or...” 

Geralt looks at the bag again, eyebrows drawing in as he tries to put the whole thing together. A beggar, the last two coins, and in exchange a magic bag. It  _ sounds _ like something out of a fairy tale. “But there’s nothing in the bag now.”

“It’s  _ obviously a magic sack _ , Geralt, try to keep up,” Jaskier replies tiredly. 

“I think you have to turn it inside out to let whatever’s in it out,” Ciri says, remembering the goose and the wheel of cheese. After a moment, she realizes. “That farmer’s sure going to be mad when he realizes it’s just a regular goose.”

“So, it’s stuck in there until Jaskier lets it out?” Geralt asks, picking the bag up. “That’s a handy trick.”

“Do you not believe me? Would you like a demonstration?” Jaskier demands, snatching the bag from Geralt’s hands. For all its flimsy make, it doesn’t so much as fray as it changes hands. “Maybe you can tell us what this creature is—” 

“No, don’t!” Ciri cries, backing up. 

“No,” Geralt growls, but Jaskier is already inverting the bag, and the horrible monster, hairy and horned with paws in front and hooves in back, with stunted membranes beneath the arms and a mouth full of horrifying teeth.

However, whatever it’s endured inside the sack has definitely changed its mind about attacking these particular targets, and when the Witcher brandishes his sword in the Fleder’s face, it gives a distressed yelp and leaps into the air to beat as hasty a retreat as it can, though Geralt isn’t about to let it get away easy.

“It’s a Fleder,” he grunts.

“A vampire? But it’s the middle of the day,” Ciri says.

“Then it’s a  _ hungry _ Fleder.”

“Shit!” Jaskier says, running after them. He hadn’t exactly been positive that would work, had expected a bit more trial and error and having to say the magic words, but this stupid bag was apparently just  _ attuned  _ to him. He clutched it in his hand as he ran after the two warriors. “Sorry!” 

Geralt hurls flame after the fleeing creature, and manages to catch most of its backside, but it leaps off into the treeline, still smoldering, and he stops his pursuit there, before following it somewhere it will have the advantage. He doubts the town will be seeing much of it anyway. Unless… “Jaskier, can you make it get back in, even if you can’t see it?”

“Er, I don’t—know… Oi! You! Get back in the bag!” Jaskier shouts, but he feels like he’s shouting with his own voice, rather pathetically, and it doesn’t work. “Sorry! Sorry?” 

Ciri grunts in frustration. “Next time, please leave the monster in the—aah!” 

She shrieks as a huge shadow jumps out of the trees at her, but Jaskier can see it now, and shouts, “ _ Get back in the bag! _ ”

With a distressed yelp and the scent of burnt hair, the creature starts to get pulled back into the sack, but Geralt moves too quickly for it, already committed to his strike. The scent of blood and burnt hair remains when both halves of the monster vanish into the bag, which still appears empty. Geralt lowers his sword again, slowly.

“Ew! Why did you get monster guts all over my nice new bag?” Jaskier cries. 

“Well, that was…” Ciri begins, and then wrinkles up her nose. “Unpleasant. Do you have to clean the bag out again?”

“I hope not.” 

“Can you put more than one thing in it?” Geralt wonders, practically. He’s already thinking it would make a fine monster body disposal solution. 

“We’re not going to stuff dead bodies in here, thanks.” Jaskier shudders and tries upending it, nervous and standing as far away as he can. The limbs and body parts do slosh out, still twitching. Jaskier jumps back, gagging. “Eugh, it’s disgusting! Geralt, no more killing things that are already heading into my bag. How does one  _ clean _ a magic bag?” 

“Just hold it upside down for a while,” Geralt suggests, kicking the monster more or less into a pile. “But step back, first, this needs to be burnt.”

“There’s no reward?” Ciri asks, sighing.

“No bill, so no reward. And the smell will draw other Fleder if we don’t burn it,” Geralt says. “Go and fetch the horses, I need the oil from Roach’s pack.”

“I’ll do it,” Ciri says, not particularly wanting to stand by and watch the bag proceedings. 

Jaskier holds it upside down, shaking it a few times, but nothing else comes out. Maybe some guts and drippings, which almost make Jaskier hurl. Can I tell a river to get in here to wash it out, d’you think?” 

Geralt gives him a frank look, that then softens. He shrugs. “Try it, but I’m letting Ciri pick her horse first if you keep complaining.”

By the time she returns, she’s obviously already picked one, which leaves a rangy gelding with a too-short tail and one torn (but long since healed) ear for Jaskier. Notably, all the horses are brown, though the one Ciri has laid claim to is bay, rather than chestnut. Ciri pauses cooing over her choice to clear her throat, briefly. “I hope you didn’t pay too much for them. We may have to return the goose money.”

“We are not returning the goose money. We sold it on good faith!” Jaskier complains, stuffing the empty bag into his belt. “She’s getting all noble on us, Geralt, and it’s your fault!” 

The horse meant for him rears back at this outburst, and Jaskier has to work harder to calm it. “Alright, sweetheart, you had better get used to loud noises around here. I’m loud. I have a lovely voice, but it is not quiet, so we’re going to need to work out an arrangement.” 

Geralt wordlessly finishes his duty of dousing the pile of offal that had once been a monster in consecrated oil and then lighting it on fire. Roach is unphased, but the other two horses stamp and snort nervously, and Geralt knows it will take some time to get them desensitized to what they need to have no fear of. 

A quick sign of Axii in the air, and the two horses grow calmer, then Geralt reaches up and pats Roach solidly on the neck. “I’m sure you’ll quickly have him singing along.”

“Oh, he’s a boy?” Jaskier wonders, idly, not sure he wants to get close enough to that end to be able to tell. “What shall we call you? Charger? Meathead? Geralt, Jr.?”

“'Bag Nag,'” Ciri suggests, with a giggle. 

Jaskier laughs. “You know, I actually like that.” 

“But can you live with it for every horse you ever own…?” Ciri wonders, grinning at Geralt, who only shrugs the implied insult off his shoulders. “I think mine will be… Loaf.” 

“That’s certainly what he was doing when I found him,” Geralt agrees. “Now, if we’d like to get anywhere by nightfall, we’d best be on our way. Keep track of that bag, and the nag, Jaskier.”

“You’re not really a nag, are you,” Jaskier purrs at his new steed, petting its mane. “Some of my best friends are nags. Look at them.” 

“ _ You’re _ a nag,” says Ciri.


	9. Chapter 9

It only makes sense that the monsters who finally get the better of Geralt are only human, a large group of Nilfgaard soldiers they run into more or less by chance as they make their slow, unhurried way back to Oxenfurt. They recognize Ciri as the princess, and Geralt is pitched into unexpected battle, forced to exhaust all his magic to buy her and Jaskier time to ride ahead.

In the end he has the better of most of them, but a parting shot from an arrow strikes luckier than it might have, given all his other injuries. It’s as much due to Roach’s surefootedness as his own experience riding that he stays in the saddle until they can find some place of refuge. Ciri sniffles into her sleeve, her eyes scrunched up in anger that she can’t get away from this, no matter how hard she tries to leave it behind her. 

Her questions remain unanswered, because even safely sequestered away in some abandoned abbey, with the questionable protection of whatever gods may once have been worshipped here, Geralt struggles three steps by willpower alone before he collapses, and both his companions yelp.

“Geralt!” 

“Damn it, Geralt, are you hurt?” Jaskier asks, stupidly. Even he can smell the blood. “Why didn’t you tell us, you great big idiot?” 

“Geralt! What should I do?” she asks Jaskier, one hand gripped hard on the hilt of her sword and wringing it instead of her hands. It feels better to do so. “We have to help him!”

“Right. Come on.”

Together, he and Ciri get Geralt inside into a place with a roof. 

“Okay. Perimeter for me, sweetheart. I’ve got him,” Jaskier instructs, kissing Ciri’s forehead. 

When she’s gone, he rounds on Geralt. “Where are you hurt? Damn it, why do you have to be so brave?” 

Geralt, having barely pried himself up off the old beaten flagstones in order to start pulling off his leather armor, looks up at Jaskier as if the question he just asked was foolish, but he doesn’t seem to have the air to answer. When the armor peels away it reveals the tip of an arrow protruding through, though it hasn’t had the good courtesy to punch all the way through his body cleanly. Geralt pulls in a difficult breath, and then looks at the injury with obvious annoyance. 

His voice comes out tight and strained, and in shorter sentences than even usual. “Got this. Running. Not bravery.”

"Except you were protecting us," Jaskier says, sounding pained. He tries to help—has to help, because the arrow is in his back—packing bandages around the wound. "Fuck. Fuck, okay."

Geralt sits up a little higher, wincing. He looks extremely pale, but the skin below the wound is darkened and purpling, in that terrifying way that means he’s bleeding somewhere. He starts to lean back against the wall for support, winces again, and then with a glance up toward Jaskier requests. “My bags.”

"Got it, stop  _ moving _ ," Jaskier snaps, terror making him angry, like a little dog. He grabs the bag, steadies Geralt, gives him something to lean one shoulder against so he can see the wound. "What am I looking for? Tell me you have a potion."

With an obvious effort to gather his thoughts, Geralt decides his best bet is to distract Jaskier for what comes next (and the best way to do that is with the truth). “The very bottom of the bag. The blue one. Kiss.”

"Now isn't the time, sweetheart," Jaskier replies, managing to wink to try to comfort him, before he looks for the potion.

And while Jaskier’s looking through the bag, Geralt tosses his weight backwards with a grunt, using the wall to push the protruding end of the arrow shaft so that the point finishes it’s trip through his skin, before he reaches up to grab the point in one gloved and clumsy hand. He pulls, growling, until he has the arrow all the way through, though Jaskier looks like he’s about to  _ faint _ . Geralt has to stop at the halfway point to catch his breath (it  _ hurts _ ), and to remind Jaskier. “ _ The Kiss. _ ”

"Oh, fuck, oh fuck," Jaskier says, drawing out the potion. "Fuck, that isn't it. Geralt, it isn't in here!" 

Geralt is in no real condition to take mental stock of the last time he replenished the supply of potions in his bag, but to his thoughts it’s just as likely he doesn’t have it. It’s particularly useful against vampires or anything that causes rending wounds.

Jaskier upends the bag gently, sorting all the potions before giving up and going back to Geralt's side. 

"Do you need—" he reaches for the arrow, prepared to pull, but not happy about it. 

“No.” Geralt says. “Look away.”

He waits for Jaskier to do so, before he finishes pulling the arrow out, coughing reflexively as he feels it pass through and then out of his body. He tosses it aside with another grunt, sending an arc of blood afterward. He takes a second to catch his breath, hand clamped to the injury. “Bandages.” 

"Here," Jaskier says, applying the bandages and feeling very faint, because it's already clear he's trying to empty an ocean with a bucket. "Tell me you have some magic of your own that can...help."

When Ciri comes back, he sends her away again for water, mostly because he doesn't want her to see this, lioncub of Cintra or no. 

Geralt shakes his head. This time, when he coughs, there’s blood. He doesn’t have any magic that is all that practical outside of combat. That’s what the potions are for. He sags back against the wall, pressing hard on the injury to try and staunch the worst of it. “A healer. Would help. Or…”

Geralt wonders, briefly, if Yennefer will feel the effects of this, or if it will do her harm because he did something so foolish as to link their fates together. This, he does his best to shake off. He’s walked away from worse than arrow wounds. “A healer.”

“Alright, okay. We can—I can send Ciri, she’s a better rider, and I’ll stay with you—” Jaskier begins, already standing up, because he knows it’s bad, but all the more reason to give a convincing performance. He’s fine, everything’s going to be fine, they’re all fine—

“Who the fuck are you?” Jaskier demands, when he stands face-to-face with a pale man dressed all in black. 

He looks thin and not very scary, actually (he has stupid hair), but somehow Jaskier knows exactly who he is before the words leave his mouth. He backs up, one arm outstretched as a ward, the other reaching for Geralt. “Oh, no. Oh, fuck no.” 

The thin apparition seems to grow thinner and paler as he approaches, the eyes darker, until Jaskier can’t help but see a grinning skull, though the man is absolutely silent in his passage, and Geralt seems completely oblivious to his presence (and much of anything else, as he tries to focus on his already slow metabolism). Death doesn’t carry a huge two handed scythe but a smaller, more practical sickle. 

When Jaskier doesn’t get out of his way, he seems briefly confused, though it’s not easy to tell on his skull-like features. 

“Look, let me make my case.” 

There’s a pause while Death seems to take him in, and then heaves a long sigh. “ _ Poets. _ ”

He starts forward again. 

“No!” Jaskier cries. “Look, you can’t let him go out like this, this is—this is basically an accident, not nearly heroic enough. He’ll be annoyed. The god of witchers will probably be annoyed. There’ll be complaints!”

Death takes a step closer, but Jasker moves, interposing himself again, bargaining. “Don’t you want to hear a song about his deeds? Aren’t you, I don’t know, obligated to hear it?”

Jaskier wonders how many verses he could add to “Toss a Coin to your Witcher” on the fly, or if anyone would notice if he just sang the chorus 47 times… 

When Death keeps moving, Jaskier grows angry. “Look. I’m  _ warning  _ you.” 

That gives Death a moment of pause, but only to become more terrifying. The darkness gathers in tightly around the solemn figure, and suddenly the whole area becomes very cold. “Do you know there’s only two sorts of people that can see me?”

Death steps closer to Jaskier, now, threatening, looming, apparently unused to being challenged with anything other than fear or fled from. “Poets and the insane. I’m not bound by the rules in the stories, singer. I’m inevitable. I don’t have to play you at Gwent to take your friend.” 

“Well, fuck you,” Jaskier said, and pulled out his bag. Either he’s going to stop Death, or his mouth is going to get him killed, too. “ _ Get in the bag _ .” 

There’s a moment where it almost seems like it might not work, the abilities of the bag stretched to the limit or perhaps just taking time to overcome the resistance of the powerful creature it’s pulling, and then Jaskier adds, “ _ Bitch _ ,” for effect, mostly, and Death lets out a high-pitched shriek of rage before he vanishes into the bag, pulled in as surely as any of the monsters. 

Then suddenly it’s all terrifying, angry silence.

But Geralt takes a breath, and then another. 

“Jaskier, who are you talking to?” Ciri asks, wide-eyed as she comes back to find Geralt unconscious and Jaskier waving that damn bag around like he’s really losing it. She’s already worried about the whole situation but she’s doing her best not to panic. “How do we help him? That looks… bad.”

“It is bad,” Jaskier says, carefully folding up the bag and stuffing it into his shirt. He feels oddly light and invincible right now, and, actually, maybe he is. “He needs a healer. I think.” 

That’s probably how that works, right? No Death is one thing, but Geralt still has a hole in his chest. Except that, Jaskier realizes as he kneels in front of Geralt and presses the bandages down, the bleeding has already stopped. “Er…” 

And then Geralt opens his eyes. He doesn’t exactly look much better, but he’s not  _ immediately dying _ , anyway. It doesn’t mean it hurts any less. But maybe it means he has time to heal, or maybe it means they’re just trapped in a weird limbo.

“What’d you do?” Geralt rasps.

“That doesn’t look good at all,” Ciri agrees. “Here, move over. It needs a proper—Geralt, is that  _ straight through? _ ”

She looks at Jaskier with consternation. “He needs a healer. Or at least hot water and a salve to keep that from going immediately into sepsis.”

"Right, right, we just need to get him to a healer," Jaskier replies, exuding a calm he reserves for when things are very bad. He's digging through his pack for water. They'll need to boil it. "So we need to wash this and wrap it and get him on a horse."

Geralt is probably glaring at him, but Jaskier completely ignores Geralt except for the hole in his chest. "I expect this won't be a good time, but you'll make it to a healer. Ciri, can you boil water for me?"

“Yes, but it’s going to take me a minute to get the fire going,” she grumbles. “I told Geralt we should get a proper flint, but he just insisted he could use Igni.”

“That’s alright, we’ve got...time,” Jaskier says, wincing at himself. 

Ciri gives a growl that makes Geralt proud, and he gestures toward the upended bag, picking himself up a little more, carefully. “It’s. There.”

Ciri digs through the pile of potions and comes up with the flint, before she begins to get wood together and set up for a fire, grumbling to herself about how Geralt prepares her for every kind of monster, but not for the basics of taking care of wounds. But she puts it together, and gets a fire going, then sets up the small cook pot with water in it, stoking the flames up in the hope that the water will boil faster. 

Jaskier sets about trying to make Geralt more comfortable, tucking clothes and blankets around him and bracing a wadded up bandage against the hole in his back. "I don't suppose you know any healers who would help us besides…"

"Do we get to visit Auntie Yen?" Ciri asks, excited. 

Jaskier makes another face. Everything about this is making him feel ill. 

“Oh, come on, Jaskier, surely you can get over yourself for  _ this. _ ” She fans the fire with several of his blank sheets of parchment, to hurry it along (it doesn’t do much but it makes her feel like she’s doing more than nothing). “And you know  _ she’ll _ have to do something, right? Their fates are linked, so really she’ll be helping herself just as much.”

"That's what he doesn't like," Geralt surprises them both by saying.

"Hey, don't talk," Jaskier scolds, pressing a little harder on the wound, though it hardly seems necessary. He may not be getting better, but he's not getting worse. "I'd hardly say I felt  _ threatened _ by Yennefer. It's really more of a healthy rivalry."

"Who said anything about threatening?" Ciri all but laughed. "You don't even have to ask her, I'll talk to her."

"It's a foregone issue, my dear," Jaskier says shortly. "We'll find Yennefer. The water's boiling."

She goes to get it, and then brings the kettle back, considering what her options are for this situation, then she takes the few clean bandages they have left and plunges them into the water, before she pauses to wash her hands and any other tools they’ll need. “Any thoughts on what to do about this? Should we try to stitch it up or just bandage it and hope Yennefer has better ideas? I think it’s got one of his lungs, so sewing might not do much…”

And she’s not just saying that because she’s terrible at sewing and did the worst in all of her embroidery lessons. Maybe she’d have done better, if she knew it might save someone’s life someday. Then, briefly, she reaches out with her clean hand to clasp one of Jaskier’s, giving it a squeeze. “Don’t worry, Jask, if he’s not dead yet, he’s got a good chance.”

“Right,” Jaskier agrees. “We’ll just—er, pack it and wrap it up. I hope the arrow wasn’t poisoned, as well. Geralt, do you feel poisoned?” 

He asks this with a little grin, not really expecting Geralt to answer. He’s honestly not sure how Geralt is  _ breathing _ , except for the fact that now he literally can’t die. 

And—and maybe he’s doing better? Like, the wound doesn’t seem that bad anymore, to Jaskier‘s untrained eye, at least, and he takes the wet rags from Ciri and presses them to the wound, rinsing it of blood and dirt. 

Geralt winces audibly, but doesn’t otherwise protest, shaking his head as he tries to answer. He feels short of breath, still, though not as much on death’s door as he had before. He has his suspicions Jaskier has  _ something _ to do with it. “Not poisoned.”

“Well, that’s a bonus. Sorry the water’s so hot,” Ciri says, brightly, trying her best to keep everything together as she and Jaskier wrap the wound. It’s easiest just to wrap his whole chest like a mummy, so they do that. “I figure, what’s a few burns if you’re already shot? Can you breathe?”

“Not well,” Geralt huffs. “But. It’s not—the bandages.”

His voice has a raw, thin quality, and he pauses frequently to breathe shallowly. When the wound is wrapped, he starts the effort to get to his feet. 

“No, no, no, hang on,” Jaskier says firmly. “Let us  _ help  _ you. Ciri, get Roach over here, please. I’ll pack up the bags.”

They strike camp quickly and return to either side of Geralt. It would be comical for either of them to try to lift him alone, but together, they just about manage it, with lots of groaning on everyone’s part. They stared at Roach, who suddenly seems like a huge draft horse, wondering how they are going to get Geralt onto her, or keep him on. 

“Er, okay, maybe we should try to make a sort of cart for her to pull…”

Roach rotates her ears back at the very mention and regards Jaskier as if he were something she planned on stepping on, and Geralt seizes the saddle, and hoists himself up the long distance based purely on willpower and the strength in his arms. He groans, winding up mostly draped over the saddle at first, but Roach waits patiently for him to get himself arranged. “She’ll be north of here.”

"Shit! Geralt!"

“There’s nothing north of here,” Ciri says. 

“Exactly.” Geralt doesn’t elaborate, he just aims Roach’s nose for the hills. 

"Damn it, damn it," Jaskier says, scrambling for his own horse and keeping him close to Roach. "Come on, Ciri!"

-

"What the fuck did you do?" Yennefer hisses, once Geralt is safely out of danger and resting in a bed behind closed doors. 

Jaskier shrinks from the accusation. "Excuse  _ you _ , I saved his life!"

Yennefer passes her cool violet eyes over him, sensing his avoidance like she can taste it in the air. She crosses her arms over her middle. “No, you kept him alive. There’s a difference. An arrow through the lung should kill even a Witcher without quick attention. So, how did you do it? Is there a demon at some crossroads you’re going to have to deal with in ten years?”

"Er," Jaskier begins. "Alright, I'll accept that you saved him. But I'd desperately appreciate it if he didn't know...what I might or might not have—"

Her eyes grow hard, and Jaskier stepps back, trying to placate her. "No demons! That's hardly my style, you know, I mean I love Geralt but I'm not quite that stupid! Anyway I could always just, you know, tell the demon to, er, get in my bag. You know. If I had a bag that powerful. Which, you know, I  _ do _ ."

Yennefer’s eyes slowly get narrower as he continues talking, and she tries to puzzle out what it is he’s talking about, and she purses her lips, looking him over top to bottom. “You’re not making any sense, bard. Tell me the whole story, so I can help you get out of whatever trouble you’ve gotten yourself into. And  _ him—us— _ into.”

She shows her teeth a little bit angrily, still upset by that whole ordeal. She’s finally getting past ‘I never want to see Geralt again,’ at least. 

"Look, we have never been less  _ into _ anything in our entire lives," Jaskier says, baited into snapping back. "You have literally never been safer from Death than you are right now. You're welcome. I don't even know why we came here, or why  _ you  _ get all of Geralt's Destiny and don't give a damn about him."

Ugh, why is he so angry? He knew this was a bad idea. 

That actually gives Yen pause, and she blinks a little at Jaskier’s obvious jealousy. She takes a moment to decode the language and outrage into something that makes a little more sense. Slowly, aloud, she realizes, “Jaskier, you’re  _ serious _ about all this? I didn’t know you could be serious about anything at all. What about all those ladies at court you did your best to seduce?”

Jaskier huffs through his nose, feeling a little bad about that. It’s quite unfair for him to feel jealous when he’s falling in love all over the place, but he can’t help it. Maybe he’s only panicking because he knows Geralt and Yennefer could have four hundred years to work out their issues, and he has—what—forty? He glowers and doesn’t answer. 

Either way, now she has leverage, and feels a little more comfortable with the situation. Ironically, it causes her to sheathe her claws a little bit. “I hardly have  _ all _ his destiny, bard. Destiny keeps pouring on him like wine into an overfull goblet, if you haven’t noticed. Surely my dear Ciri has some, and it’s not just magic. The difference is I never  _ asked _ for any. His attachments are…very complicated, and I have my own plans, you know.”

“Fine, yes, whatever,” Jaskier replies, latching onto that hope that maybe they’ll have the decency to continue to vaguely hate each other until after he’s gone. He waves a hand and tries to walk past her into the room she’s put Geralt in. “Sorry we interrupted your plans, thank you for your help, we’ll be on our way as soon as he’s fit to travel, send Destiny the bill…” 

“Wait  _ just _ a minute,” she calls after Jaskier, and if she uses just a little magic to freeze him in place, well, it’s all for effect, isn’t it? “What exactly was it you did, if not make a deal with a demon? How did your silly little bag help you out of this one?”

“Oh, don’t play coy, Yen,” Jaskier says, drawing the bag out of his pocket. “You remember this one. Powerful enough to make Yennefer of Vengerberg lose a little time. Powerful enough to trap Death himself. Back off, or you can join him inside.” 

His voice goes a little deep for dramatic effect, but Jaskier tells himself he doesn’t do it on purpose, it just  _ happens _ .

Yennefer narrows her eyes at the bag, and then at Jaskier, tipping her chin up as if she’s trying to figure out if the bard would  _ lie _ to her. Then again, she’s been witness to the power of that unassuming sack, and if she found it undignifying, the idea that the bard has death itself in the bag is… enough to make her laugh. “Fine,  _ don’t _ tell me, then. You can stay as long as you need to, for the price of that tall tale. Dinner is in an hour, and I have guests. Maybe you can make yourself useful and play.”

“Fine,” Jaskier says, relaxing, and he really does mean it when he says, “Anything. Thank you. And that is the story, I promise, just—just don’t tell the witcher about this, I do mean that, Yennefer. Please. He—he won’t understand.” 

“Oh, we’re keeping secrets for each other, now?” she asks, instead of promising not to mention it. Something in her eyes tells him she will keep his secret, however. Maybe as repayment for saving Geralt this time. She nods once, almost to herself, and then lets the matter be, before gathering Ciri up to give her a lesson in magic before her supper. If they’re going to be here a little while, then no sense wasting the opportunity. 


	10. Chapter 10

The time they spend with Yennefer doesn’t seem to pass normally. This is perhaps, of course, normal when spending one’s time with a witch, but Jaskier doesn’t think so. 

Geralt does get better, Ciri excels at her studies, and Jaskier even manages to keep Yennefer’s guests entertained for several nights without sleeping with any dignitary’s spouses. 

“Oh, you’re awake,” Jaskier says, entering Geralt’s room and laying his lute down wearily. “It’s late.” 

He sits on the bed beside the witcher, touching the side of his neck and his forehead. “How are you feeling? Can I bring you anything?” 

Geralt can breathe normally again, and he's starting to get restless being stuck here in a room, especially with Jaskier, Yen, and Ciri coming in rotations to inquire about his health or be catty about each other. Mostly Ciri stays out of the latter, and she does seem to be benefitting from Yennefer’s teaching in how to control her magic. 

“No, but… stay?” Geralt requests, simply. He’s still not sure how he’s alive, except maybe that the thread connecting him to Yen had pulled him through, or perhaps just Jaskier and Ciri’s hard work to keep him that way. Things are finally healing well enough that Geralt is conscious more than unconscious, anyway. He’s sure that Jaskier is feeling taxed by the proximity to Yen. 

“Of course,” Jaskier says, curling his hand around Geralt’s neck, a comforting weight. 

“Are you doing alright? Is Ciri?” Geralt asks, carefully. 

“Oh, yes, we’re all fine,” Jaskier says with a tight smile. Maybe he and Yennefer have reached an understanding, or maybe all the bitching is just reflexive now, but he’s almost starting to not hate it here. “Ciri and I are doing quite well for the stint in civilization, actually. I think the blisters on my poor feet have finally calloused and I haven’t had to go without wine even once since we got here! You know I think Yennefer even said you might be allowed to take a turn or two about the room tomorrow, if you’re feeling up to it. Though, between you and me, if you pretended to be an invalid long enough, I’m quite confident I could steal a pair of her dominatrix boots I’m so envious of, so take your time…” 

Geralt listens to all of this with his eyes closed, but he’s still paying attention obviously, because he cracks one luminous yellow eye open to regard Jaskier. “Do you have the same size feet?” 

The question is more idly curious than accusatory, since if Yennefer wants to protect her accessories from the likes of Jaskier, she is more than capable of it. She also can probably curse Jaskier from afar, but who said life wasn’t interesting with a bard around? 

“Unfortunately, no. I plan on taking them to a very good cobbler I know to have them duplicated, and then return them to her kinky little closet before she’s the wiser,” Jaskier says, obviously having planned this heist thoroughly. He grins, proud of himself, and scoots in closer, curling up on the bed with him. “I think  _ you’d  _ like to see me in them almost as much as I’d like to see myself in them.” 

“Mmm,” Geralt agrees, reaching out to pull Jaskier a little closer. He’s been stuck in bed for a few weeks, but he’s starting to feel better, well enough for some exercise, like Yennefer said. “I think I’d rather see you out of them, poet.”

“Oho, a foot fetishist, eh?” Jaskier cackles. 

Huffing a short laugh, Geralt pulls Jaskier onto his lap, though they’re both careful to arrange themselves to avoid any places he’s still tender, and then he starts to lean up, grunts, and instead pulls Jaskier down to him to kiss him. 

“Hey, easy, easy,” Jaskier says, holding Geralt’s hips down as he breathes hot into his neck. “My feet are yours, witcher, and the rest of me, too, as long as you’ll have them.” 

He pulls back just enough to wink, and then surges in to kiss him. “Let me do all the work.” 

“I’ll never hear the end of it,” Geralt grumbles, but he gives in, letting Jaskier take the initiative, though his hands stay on the bard (nothing wrong with them), picking at the fastenings of his shirt slowly, while they continue to kiss. Maybe he should feel bad about doing this under Yennefer’s roof, but he doubts she’d hold it against him. Besides, there’s hardly any other way to pass the time. He pushes Jaskier’s shirt off once he’s finished with the ties, and then sets to work on his trousers. 

Before long the bard is naked in his lap, and when Jaskier surfaces from the kiss he looks around himself like he’s not sure how that happened. 

“Hey, I thought I was supposed to do all the work,” he says, sliding off Geralt’s legs to crouch in his lap, opening his trousers. 

“You are,” Geralt says, shifting only a little to stay comfortable, gaze fixed on Jaskier with deep interest. 

Jaskier gives him a few loose strokes before hunching over and taking him in his mouth, getting him nice and wet and hard. 

It feels distinctly like coming alive again, the way his body slowly but with extreme willingness wakes up for Jaskier’s attentions, and he feels the warmth creep out from his center, the low lust and arousal that’s been quelled under his body’s efforts at healing. Geralt groans, feeling both sore and eager, settling one of his hands at the back of Jaskier’s neck and threading his fingers into the bard’s hair until it’s a dishevelled mess. 

He lets his head fall back, making encouraging sounds low in his chest as Jaskier puts his clever mouth to good use, and there’s something of poetry in this too. Geralt keeps to himself which of Jaskier’s arts he prefers, lest he be deprived of either, but he does make more encouraging noises while getting his cock sucked than while Jaskier is singing, anyway. 

Jaskier waits until his cock is dripping with saliva and precome before pulling off and surging up to kiss him on the lips, hard, bracing himself on the headboard. He gasps, "The  _ noises _ you make for me, Geralt. Divinely pornographic."

Geralt, also gasping, leans up to kiss Jaskier again, hoping somewhere small and distracted that he never takes it into his thoughts to describe Geralt in bed for one of his ballads. Gods know he’s crude enough. 

Then Jaskier reaches for oil, using far more than necessary as he works himself open, sloppy and slutty, right on Geralt's lap. "What do you think our hostess would say, if she caught us like this, eh?"

Geralt sets his hands on Jaskier’s hips and pulls him just a little closer, enough to make it comfortable to get his hand around Jaskier’s cock and stroke lazily, in time to the motions the bard makes to get himself ready. “If we’re lucky, she’d offer to join us. If we were unlucky…”

He supposes some sort of curse would be involved. He knows what she’s capable of. “She’d decide to amuse herself with us. I’ve heard tales that she can curse a man to stay hard for a week…”

Maybe that doesn’t have the appropriate terrifying effect on Jaskier, but Geralt’s sure any novelty would quickly wear off. 

“Hmm, if she did that to you, I think I’d hardly notice the difference,” Jaskier replies, biting his lip coyly, and then biting Geralt’s lip with much more purpose. He’s only two fingers in, but very slick and very impatient, so he scrambles up, straddling Geralt’s lap awkwardly, nearly up on his feet to sit on the witcher’s cock, which makes them both laugh a little before he sinks down, the pain sharp and legs trembling, but not more than he can handle. “Ah, fuck.  _ Fuck _ , it’s been a bit. Please don’t move, Geralt, for the sake of the hole in your chest and the one in my arse.” 

Even if he weren’t ordered to, Geralt can feel the trembling muscles in Jaskier’s thigh, letting them both take a moment to breathe slow and even as Geralt soothes the sting out with one hand slowly stroking Jaskier’s cock, and the other first rubbing his lower back, and then down to the cleft of his ass, where he’s straining and stretched, feeling the way his own cock has breached Jaskier’s tight hole. He makes use of his fingertips there, too, small soft strokes like he could ease the pain out, or like he might make with his tongue if he really wanted Jaskier to sing. 

“You’d notice the difference,” Geralt decides, after considering it for long enough to feel the trembling start to ease in Jaskier’s thighs. “Maybe not right away, but the next time you had to walk anywhere…”

Jaskier laughs, collapsing against Geralt’s chest though he tries not to hurt him. He grins up at him, ready to move, trying it out in gentle rolling motions. “Yes, I probably would.” 

The rest is slow and easy, kissing and touching in whatever way, at whatever pace, feels good. Jaskier can’t stop kissing Geralt, moving slow and gentle, giving and taking. Orgasm builds slowly, like notes in a crescendo, and he finds himself gasping in the aftermath of pleasure, “I almost lost you.” 

“You didn’t,” Geralt reassures, breathless and warm from the exertion. He feels faintly sore, but lighter, like the air is less dense. He runs his hands up Jaskier’s back, pulling him chest-to-chest so he can feel that Geralt’s alive; breathing (slower than a normal man) and heart beating (steady, just a little quicker than normal). “But if you had, I hope you would have really embellished. An arrow is…very mundane for a witcher.”

Jaskier laughs, and hits Geralt’s arm before he thinks better of it. “It’s not funny, you brute.” 

He lets himself be lulled by Geralt’s heartbeat, the sound of his breath. A lullaby? No, definitely something faster, with a plodding rhythm: Blues? Elegy? He thinks of writing a song to this beat, anyway. “Of course I’d have exaggerated. Multiple arrows. Protecting women and orphans. The whole bit. There’d probably be a flute solo.  _ Near...far...wherever you are… I believe that the heart does go on… _ ” 

“ _ No. _ ” Geralt says, but he’s too content to shove Jaskier off or even to protest too much. It’s enough that Jaskier doesn’t continue, though perhaps the fact that Geralt casually slips him into a headlock that threatens his life should he continue has something to do with it. He kisses Jaskier again, and then paws around to get the blanket over both of them. 

“You’re right, it’s too slow,” Jaskier says, wriggling off Geralt’s lap enough to grab some of their discarded clothes to clean up with. He  _ tsks  _ as Geralt tries to fall asleep just like this: “Yennefer will murder me if I let you fall asleep sitting up like this. You’ll have to lie back down.” 

Geralt grumbles a faint protest, but he’s too tired to make any ordeal of it, instead shifting to let Jaskier fuss over him.

Gingerly, Jaskier removes the extra pillows until there’s just the one under Geralt’s head, and then climbs back into bed with him, still naked, hoping Ciri won’t come in at any point. 

Pulling the bard close to him, Geralt takes a deep breath that he knows he only can because of Jaskier’s help, and then yawns, pulling the blankets over both of them before uttering a gruff thank you that isn’t intended for the bard’s singing. 

-

Of course it’s Yennefer who figures it out first, and of course she brings it to Jaskier like a demand, rather than politely, dragging the bard aside after his lessons with Ciri. He’s been avoiding her even more than usual, which Yennefer knows means he’s got something he wants to keep hidden. He’d said as much, when he’d dragged the mostly dead Witcher in, but now Geralt has done the better part of his healing.

“I understand keeping it from the princess,” Yen accuses, after ambushing Jaskier in her own hallways, having turned him into a dead end and cornered him with magic. “But why are you hiding things from  _ Geralt? _ He’s bound to notice when he gets back outside my walls, and you know that’s sooner rather than later now that he’s on his feet again.”

“Notice?” Jaskier squeaks, a little helplessly, playing dumb on instinct, even though she knows, and he knows she knows. “What’s he going to notice? Why would he think that was my fault? Why would he care?” 

“Oh, I’m not sure,” she says. “Maybe that not one single person in the world seems to have died in the weeks since you turned up here, dragging Geralt with you in a condition that should have killed even him. Oh, also, crops aren’t growing, slaughtered animals aren’t dying… you’ve done  _ something _ , Jaskier. Something rash, I would guess.”

“Wait, I’m sorry,” Jaskier splutters, “did you say  _ nothing  _ is—” 

“ _ Yes _ , Jaskier. No one and nothing is dying.” Her eyes bore into him. “This is worse than some crossroads deal, isn’t it? You haven’t stopped time, but you’ve stopped Death somehow. Now, you have to un-stop it.”

Jaskier grimaces. “That’s not—you know that’s not my bag. Saving the world? That’s Geralt, and Ciri, and—you.”

Except it  _ was his bag _ , literally. Wasn’t it? He’d kept Death from Geralt and kept Death from everything else, too. 

He frowned, distracted. “You say time has stopped? Things have stopped growing? That’s an interesting philosophical question, actually, that death and time are linked… I might have to write a paper on that….” 

"Not  _ time _ , but the effect of time, I suppose," she allows. "Though at least healing doesn't seem to have stopped. Just… no new life, and no end for old life."

She looks meaningfully at Jaskier. "You robbed death."

“Hardly  _ robbed _ ,” Jaskier says, waving a hand at her like this is nothing. “This is more of a straightforward kidnapping. Well, I say straightforward, it’s really almost accidental. Incidental. It’s fine.” 

He tries to move past her. 

She grabs his arm. “It isn’t fine. This can’t go on. It shouldn’t have gone on this long. Either you tell him, or I will.”

“Why, you—” Jaskier scrunches up his face, an idle threat for someone who put Death in a sack. “You had better not!” 

Jaskier lowers his voice to a threatening hiss. “You know what will happen if he finds out? He’ll try to fix it, and get himself killed properly and fully this time. Do you want that?” 

She squints at Jaskier as if he is obtuse, which he  _ is _ , but in this case he is being particularly obtuse. “Since that would also probably kill me properly and fully, no, Jaskier. But while Geralt is dense, he’s no fool. He’ll smell this on you a mile away. Your best bet is to fix it. Somehow.”

“Right, maybe I’ll just invite Death back out of the bag for a spot of tea!” Jaskier shouts, voice shrill with growing panic. “Ask him very nicely not to kill Geralt, or me, or everyone in the land now because he’s so cheesed off! I’m very certain he’ll see reason!” 

Yennefer makes an abrupt gesture that cuts him off quite literally, stealing his voice for a few seconds to force him to think. “Well, do as you will. He’ll try to fix it anyway, you know. Or Ciri will. You know how these things end in stories…”

Jaskier harumphs and stalks off before she even gives him his voice back, but once he feels it return he stalks back to her with one more thing. “Don’t you dare tell him, alright? I’ll deal with it. You blab, I’ll put  _ you  _ in the bag, understand?” 

“You’d have to let death out to put me in, wouldn’t you?” she remarks, primly.

“Do you want to find out?” 

“Very well, I’ll let you keep the secret. I’ll even help you, since you seem too proud to ask.”

He continues walking away, and she decides she’s done nagging him anyway, so she lets him. She  _ is _ grateful that he saved Geralt, and she probably won’t even kill the Witcher herself, once Jaskier has gotten death back on the job. She  _ might _ , however, teach Ciri a few things that may come in handy. 

\- 

Jaskier is beside himself. 

He knows there’s a chance he could go back to Oxenfurt and find a way out of this, but if it didn’t work he’d just unleash Death on the unsuspecting university. Full of all his rivals and ex-lovers and... _ students _ . 

Maybe that isn’t such a bad idea, he jokes to himself, meanly, though he knows better. He knows Death is fair. He’ll want Geralt, or nothing at all. 

So the only sensible plan is to get Death as far away from Geralt as possible, and try to threaten him or bargain with him before he can track the witcher down again. Jaskier is prepared—annoyed, but prepared—to even sell his own life for the witcher, but only because he’s past it now, and had a good run and is unlikely to top himself—his greatest rival—at his prime. A poor trade, to be sure, and Death might not go for it. But he has to try. 

Which means Jaskier has to leave, and he has to be absolutely certain Geralt won’t follow him. 

He finds Geralt alone—he has to get Geralt alone or this won’t work—while he knows Ciri and Yen are busy with their lessons. “You’re looking much better today.” 

Geralt is  _ feeling _ better, slowly getting the strength back through relentless effort of his training this week. So when Jaskier finds him, he’s hot and tired, a little sore, but satisfied that he can still swing a sword well enough to hold his own when he’ll need to. It means he’s in a good mood, too, so Geralt hooks his arm around Jaskier’s middle to pull him against his side. “Thanks to you. And you seem to be suffering less than expected, under Yennefer’s roof.”

“Yes, well,  _ seems  _ being the key word there,” Jaskier says haughtily. “At any rate, I found you to let you know that I’m leaving.” 

Geralt meets this with a slow incline of his head, a narrowing of his eyes that measures the expression on Jaskier’s face and takes in that there is genuinely something bothering him. “Is it Yen? I can talk to her. Or come with you, now that I’m back on my feet.”

“Ha!” Jaskier straightens the pack on his shoulders. “It’s alright, mate, I know she’s the one you’re really after. Anyway, you’ve got the kid to think about these days.” 

Jaskier has to physically bite the inside of his cheek to keep from rambling, as is his wont, because he knows really cruel statements aren’t delivered in soliloquies. A villain’s rambling monologue only shows how much he  _ cares  _ about the hero. That’s what makes Geralt so interesting to Jaskier, really, how heroic  _ and  _ quiet he is. How kind and how cruel. 

“Jask,” Geralt says, sharply. “Ciri needs all of us.”

Unspoken, but just as true perhaps is that Geralt needs Jaskier, something he’d have never admitted, but that he thought was understood. As far as Yennefer being the one Geralt is truly after, he’s hardly sure of that himself. Even if put to a press, he couldn’t exactly tell either what he really wants, or make a solid decision between them. It might be a true weakness, if he’s honest. 

“Oh, I’m just not any good with children,” Jaskier says. “You know, you’ve got your destiny, I’ve got mine, and I make it an important part of  _ my  _ destiny to deny any and all children that claim to be mine.”

Jaskier could see Geralt’s eyes darken at that, in suspicion or hurt, so he had to barrel ahead with the rest before he could chicken out or Geralt had a chance to think he might be lying. 

“It’s fine. It’s not you! It’s definitely me! I just liked you better without the adorable little shadow. You’re welcome to look me up again when she turns eighteen. Old enough to go to university, and, you know,  _ legal… _ ” 

“Jaskier,” Geralt’s tone drops down into warning, but the bard is firing words at him too fast for him to say anything edgewise. Then he’s turning, shouldering his pack a little higher, while Geralt is still processing all the words just thrown at him. But there’s nothing he can say yet, and Jaskier doesn’t give him the time to get his thoughts together. “You don’t mean any of that.”

Jaskier screws up his face and his courage when he turns back around, giving Geralt as lewd a smile as he can manage, tongue pressed against his cheek and everything. “Don’t I?” 

Geralt just stares, as if Jaskier is the most incomprehensible thing he’s ever seen, and then seems to realize that to pursue it any further would be to fully admit to exactly how much Geralt’s come to rely on him. He draws himself up straight, accepting the role of guardianship that Jaskier is foisting on him, and doesn’t demand ‘why’. His voice is a deeper rumble of pure disapproval. “Then just  _ go _ .”

“Ah, see,” Jaskier says with a bright smile, twisting the knife just a little bit, though he’d be lying if he said it didn’t hurt him, too. “You’re so good at this part.” 

He pats Geralt on the arm and turns to go. 

Geralt goes stiff at the contact, resisting his instinct to grab Jaskier and yank him as off-balance as he feels, but of course the bard is right. He’s always been good at walking out of other people’s lives, mostly because he’d never placed too much value on stepping into them to begin with. He grits his teeth, wondering why on earth Jaskier had stayed all this time, or why he’d come to get Geralt if he was just going to leave like this.

The fact that it leaves him stung and reeling might teach Geralt something, eventually. Instead, he just throws himself back into training, and tries to figure out how he’s going to explain this to Ciri. 


	11. Chapter 11

“What do you _mean_ you just let him leave?” Ciri demands, when Geralt finally can’t dodge her questions anymore that evening.

His expression is so hangdog and exhausted that she can easily tell he’s suffering, and yet like the big dumb dolt he is, he obviously thinks he’s going to stick to this decision. Not on _her_ watch. “Well, we have to go after him!”

“He… said he didn’t want to be a parent anymore.”

Ciri frowns heavily. Could her surrogates really be this dense? She’d never asked Jaskier to act as a parent, nor had she asked Yennefer or Geralt, either. Instead, it had all just come together. “Are you sure Auntie Yen hasn’t just brainwashed him so she doesn’t have to hear another six verses about how well endowed you are? As if she doesn’t know alre—”

“Cirilla,” Geralt doesn’t even snap at her, he just sounds tired. 

“Geralt,” she replies, mimicking his tone perfectly, but with the addition of teenage princess angst that makes it infinitely more powerful. She plops down beside him on the opulent settee. “When are we going after him?” 

Geralt is saved from having to answer by Yennefer sweeping into the room. “You know, I thought the castle had gotten quieter and more pleasant. Has that bard finally left?” 

Ciri stands up, gasping. “Did you make him leave?” 

“If only I _could_ ,” Yennefer laughs, pouring herself a goblet of wine and looking around like she expects Jaskier to appear with another nasty song about her and syphilis or something. “Wait, you mean he actually left? I thought he’d’ve taken you with him.” 

Geralt obviously doesn’t want to talk about it, rocking back in his seat defensively, and looking at Yen as if she might have something to do with it despite her denials. “He said he was going back to Oxenfurt.”

Both Ciri and Yen look at him now and Geralt goes even further on the defensive. “And that he wanted nothing to do with raising children.”

Yen actually snorts wine out her nose, the clearest indication that this isn’t fake derisive scorn but the real thing. “Oh, my gods, you fell for that?” 

She looks between Geralt and Ciri. 

“He loves Ciri, and he loves you,” Yen says, wiping her mouth and nose and rolling her eyes. “But of course he must not have wanted you with him if he pissed you off that badly…”

Ciri looks to Geralt, alarmed. 

“I’m not saying you really ought to track him down,” Yen continues, genuinely amused by the whole ordeal. “I mean, I’m sure _I_ wouldn’t mind if I never heard another one of his amusing ditties again, but I know you’d regret it. I’m just sure he’s up to something dangerous.”

Geralt, for just a sulky moment, wonders if Yennefer is trying to divest herself of her other guests, too, before he gets up. “You’d better get your things, Ciri.”

“I would have done that anyway,” Ciri grunts to herself, but she gets up to do so. “It’s a good thing we’re faster than he is.”

She gives Geralt a long look to make sure he’s taking this seriously, but he’s already heading for his rooms. She turns back to Yen, asking, “You aren’t just saying that to get rid of us, right? He’ll sulk for _ages_.”

Yennefer takes Ciri’s hand and pulls her to sit down. “I think...you should stay with me. Not,” she says sternly, forestalling any protest, “because I think they don’t need your help—they do—but because I think they’ll have some things to work out between them.”

Ciri pouts. “You’re not _really_ sure Jaskier doesn’t hate me, then? That he didn’t leave because of me?”

“ _I_ couldn’t scare him off Geralt, Ciri,” Yen says, carding her fingers through the girl’s hair. “So, no. It’s _not_ you.”

Ciri settles down, looking a little put out, but she nods. “I’m sure he wouldn’t have been so patient with me if he didn’t care. Just like I’m sure you’d have turned him into a human sacrifice at least a week ago if _you_ didn’t care.”

“My dear,” Yennefer says, and draws Ciri into a hug. “You have to remember something about Jaskier. He’s a wonderful actor. But a terrible liar. Just like your auntie.” 

…

Jaskier of course has a day’s head start. Geralt has the better horse, but not by much. He’d picked Jaskier’s as well. He’s stiff and sore from practicing too hard already when he swings up into the saddle, and if he makes questionable use of one of his potions to give him a little extra strength and keep him awake so he can ride through the night to catch up, well he doesn’t have to admit that to Jaskier when he catches the man. 

…

Jaskier, however, decides halfway to Oxenfurt to give up on heading there. 

First of all, the ratio to people he hates and likes there isn’t ideal if this goes very badly. There are, however, several kingdoms whose leaders are corrupt _and_ won't even sleep with him, and among them, one is rather close. 

So that’s where he heads, and gets himself an invite, and even gives a performance, and gives it all he’s got. The rumors fly that he’s singing about being jilted by the dogaressa, or the doge, or, hell, even the wicked prince who’s currently in residence (oops), but of course he knows about whom he’s really singing, and he makes the audience feel it as achingly as he. 

So, that's nice. 

Though if he makes it through letting Death out of the bag he might be assassinated by morning, so, who knows. 

He expects to find his room empty, but doesn’t, and maybe it’s satisfying that at least one of the ladies in the courtful he’d just performed for has come upstairs to put herself naked into his bed, if he didn’t have other plans. It seems like it would be in exceedingly poor taste to indulge even in one last act of adultery if he’s about to unleash death on the whole castle, so he feigns that his broken heart is just far _too_ broken and with great regret closes her out of the room again.

He does polish off the bottle of wine she brought, before sitting down in the middle of the bed to open the sack. There’s no _planning_ for this really. The best he’ll be able to do is perhaps jam death back in the sack until he relents. Maybe that would have worked with the Djinn? Anyway, he cautiously unties the string and then opens the bag, before carefully starting to invert it.

What emerges is a terrifying howling that seems to shake the very walls of the castle, and then the skull-faced spectre himself pours out, liquid shadow and skeletal rage, looking for a target to strike back at. Death comes shrieking into the walls of the place, angrier than cats in a sack, and wheels around to face...Jaskier. Holding his sack.

“Now, listen,” he begins to explain as several things drop out with Death, including a chicken he’d entirely forgotten about, “I assume you’re going to be angry with me, and that’s fine. But you didn’t listen to reason and now we’re both in a bind. So I’m willing to come along quietly on a very particular condition, that you—” 

“Poets!” Death shrieks, spitting mad, and then vanishes through a window, leaving Jaskier alone, clutching an empty burlap bag that is perhaps the most magical thing he’s ever encountered, and now he can say he’s met death.

An instant later, Geralt kicks his door in, with both swords drawn. 

Only to find Jaskier at the window, shouting, “Don’t you want to go on a screaming rampage? Kill the doge? Not even maim him a little? He’s a shitbag, I can tell you!” 

With no immediate source of danger, Geralt has nothing to vent his anger on. At the least, he sheathes the silver sword before he grabs Jaskier by the fabric of his shirt over one shoulder, wheeling him around to face him, glowing-eyed and at least as terrifying as death. “Jaskier _what_ did you do?”

Jaskier has never seen Geralt like this, eyes slitted like a cat’s and veins bulging and every part of him intense, on alert. It actually frightens him, and he yelps and collapses back against the wall. Normally in these situations he calls _for_ Geralt, and his brain just isn’t sure what to do with Geralt as the threat. “Fuck! Geralt, what—what’s wrong with your—are you here to kill me?” 

Geralt actually hesitates at that but he can see that Jaskier is terrified (and a little part of him feels a faintly vindictive feeling at that thought), though he lets go of it quickly and peers out the window into the darkness. “No it’s just cat’s-eye, Jaskier. So I could see whatever it was you were up here doing. Care to explain what that was? I know you didn’t run away to avoid parenthood.”

If he sounds a little raspier than even his usual, Geralt has been riding for a few days, certain that Jaskier was in some sort of real trouble, and yet here he was in a castle bedroom. Now some of the other people are starting to gather in the halls, after all the racket has died down. At the first outraged noble’s voice demanding ‘what’s going on!’, Geralt rolls his eyes and then reaches out to close the door he’d kicked open. “Or did you want to explain to the whole court?”

“Nothing, nothing, my lords, just my very good friend the witcher Geralt of Rivia here for a visit, thank you, good night, don’t bother with your assassing tonight, ta, ta,” Jaskier says, beaming as he slams the door. “Geralt! You—look, just calm down. There’s a perfectly rational—”

He pauses, latching onto something else entirely. “You came after me?” 

Geralt’s eyes narrow slowly, and he finally sheathes his other sword since it’s obvious that a horrible monster isn’t going to pop out of the closet at least for now. He makes a sudden reach for Jaskier, too fast to dodge, and then just pulls him against his chest and bear-hugs him roughly. “It’s not the _first_ time, either.”

“Oh, Geralt,” Jaskier says, and hugs him back, relieved, because if Death is gone and Geralt is here, then—then it’s over. And they’re all alright. He shudders, makes a dry sobbing sound he hides against Geralt’s chest. “How did you—you weren’t supposed to come after me!” 

Geralt had spent almost too long searching in Oxenfurt. It hardly matters, now. “I had some sense talked into me. Now, Jaskier, can you explain?”

“You’re going to be cross with me,” Jaskier says. “So, no. You couldn’t torture it out of me.” 

Geralt squeezes him a little tighter, a gesture that isn’t quite a threat, yet. “Are you sure you want to test me, when I’m the only one standing between you and all those nobles?”

“Oof, Geralt!” Jaskier groans, pushing against him with both elbows, but he might as well have been trying to push against an ox sitting on him. “Alright, alright, between torture and assassination you drive a hard bargain, put me down!” 

Jaskier grunts as Geralt releases him, and he sits back on the bed. 

“It was that stupid arrow! It wasn’t even my fault!” he begins. 

Geralt fixes his eyes on Jaskier in the dark, standing firm and crossing his arms while he waits for Jaskier to explain in a way that makes sense. There’s a lot about this that’s making the Bard behave even more strangely than usual, which leads Geralt to believe it’s more serious than Jaskier wants to make it out to be. However, waiting doesn’t seem to do much to encourage Jaskier along. After a long moment, Geralt prompts, “... _What_ wasn’t your fault?”

“That you died! Or that Death wanted you! I—I—I didn’t have any choice, you understand, Geralt, he just, he just—you can’t reason with Death, of course, and I have this bag, so I just—and then you were alive, but everything else was stopped, and Yen got mad at me, and—and—and I thought—” 

Somehow, Jaskier seems to not be getting enough breath to keep talking, but he keeps talking, anyway. 

“I thought Death was going to be mad so I came here because I had to let him out, and I couldn’t have you following me, so I, I, I, I-I-I—” 

“You… put _Death_ in that bag?” Geralt manages to follow the stuttering to some kind of conclusion. “The _goose_ bag?”

“It’s not _just_ for gooses, you oaf!” 

“Geese.” At that, Geralt goes back to the window he’d found Jaskier leaning out, and he’d heard all kinds of tales about what was going on in the world, especially the bafflement at Oxenfurt. So, Jaskier had kept death in a sack and no one had died and nothing had been born. Geralt grunts. “It’s going to be an interesting night. What happened when you opened it?”

Now Jaskier felt like he was getting _too much_ air, and he tried to get his breathing under control. Maybe he had been scared, after all, he just hadn’t realized it. Maybe he had been terrified for weeks, and it was only just hitting him now? “He just—” he panted, “he just—left—” 

“And you’re not dead,” Geralt points out, looking out the window. “Though I’m sure a lot of other people who should be are about to be. Except, apparently, the doge.”

“Damn him,” Jaskier says, taking a gulping breath. 

Geralt settles heavily on the bed next to Jaskier, after a moment, thinking he’d like to get out of here, but Jaskier seems rattled, more than he usually lets himself be and he’s surprisingly brave… for someone who isn’t all that good with a sword and just has to sing at his problems. “Are you alright?”

“Are you?!” Jaskier counters shrilly. He presses a hand on his chest, like he can keep himself from hyperventilating that way. That would be a worse way for a bard to die than an arrow was for a witcher. “You shouldn’t be here. Death might change his mind. I ran from you for a reason, Geralt.” 

“I’m fine,” Geralt says, taking Jaskier’s hand, and then pausing to rub his back awkwardly as if he would for a drunken man trying to hold onto his stomach. “And I am here, and you shouldn’t have run from me. It seems like you scared Death off anyway.”

Briefly, he’s not sure if he should worry about that, but Geralt lets go of it as quickly as he can. For now, it’s not what he’s worried about. He tries to find an approach to help Jaskier’s panic that he might be able to latch onto. “And now you can sing about your own damn adventures for once.”

"Haha," Jaskier says, and the release of breath in the laugh does help regulate his breathing a little. "I think that would be courting too much danger, even for me. Pretty—" he took a more careful breath this time— "pretty sure I can still feel pain. And I hate pain."

A subvocal noise indicates Geralt’s agreement with him. Maybe he’s still growing some, because Geralt is upset with Jaskier, intermingled somewhere with his respect for the resolve he must have had to take all this on. 

“Have you still had enough of taking care of Ciri? If you really need time away, I don’t mean it to seem like you can’t have it,” Geralt says, cautiously. “Just that I’d rather know where we stood, exactly.”

“ _No_ , gods,” Jaskier says, rubbing his face. The mortification fixes his breathing right up. “She’s a delight—you didn’t tell her what I said, did you? That was supposed to piss _you_ off, not her, you bastard.” 

Jaskier flops back onto the bed dramatically. He's still clutching the bag. 

“Well what was I supposed to tell her?” Geralt huffs, defensively. 

“Literally anything else!” 

“The good news is I think you don’t have to worry about dying for… possibly ever.”

He’s not positive about it but he’s heard that Death doesn’t forget those that do it wrong… or rather, it does forget them. Forever. It does seem like the sort of trouble that only Jaskier would get into. 

“That’s going to get obnoxious eventually,” Jaskier states flatly, and then grins sidelong at the witcher. “For _you_.” 

Geralt, sharp ears attuned to the murmuring still happening outside the door, wheels on Jaskier, pushing him down on the bed. “It’s already obnoxious. Maybe over time you’ll wear me down, instead, and I’ll stop noticing your abrasive parts.”

He gives Jaskier a toothy kiss to soothe any sting from his words. After all, he came all this way and didn’t give up even if Jaskier didn’t really need rescuing after all. 

Jaskier relaxes into the kiss with a moan, even if he’s still vaguely annoyed and far too keyed up for this. 

“You know, I’ve never seen you when you take your potions. Don’t tell me they grant you _other_ superhuman properties,” he says, rolling his hips up to grind into the witcher. 

A rude snort answers his question, muffled somewhere against Jaskier’s collarbone as his hands rove familiarly over the bard’s body. Geralt isn’t sure why the relief rolls up in him this way, but he is glad to see Jaskier alive and well, and Jaskier seems glad to see him, or at least _excited,_ by the way he’s rubbing his dick against Geralt’s middle. “No, but Yen knows some _spells_ …”

The reminder is unlikely to please Jaskier, and Jaskier does huff in annoyance, so instead he sinks lower, still wearing his swords and heavy armor and unwilling to take the time to get rid of either before he yanks the ties on Jaskier’s pants open to get his mouth on the bard’s cock. 

“You’re—you—” Jaskier pants, and swears loudly. “Ah, you’re so hot!” 

He means temperature, Geralt’s mouth is molten and hungry, and Jaskier whines but arches up into it anyway. It’s a new and strange (possibly wonderful? Or maybe Jaskier is still seconds away from crying from the stress of the evening and just over-sensitive all over) feeling, and he sits up, holding onto Geralt’s hair with one hand while he strips armor and swords off him with the other. It’s a rather feeble attempt from here, but he is trying. Ah, well, his words are usually more effective, anyway: “You brute, you’re stabbing me with the wrong sword!” 

Rather doubting that (with both weapons secured to his back), Geralt does at least shift to make it a little easier for Jaskier to work the buckles. When the straps are loose he shrugs out of the equipment, not faltering an instant in his attention to Jaskier’s cock while he eases it down to the floor with one hand before seizing the bard by the hips and pulling him toward the edge of the bed so he can crouch on the floor for this, pinning Jaskier’s hips in place with his grip so he can swallow Jaskier deeper. It might be a little bit revenge, but the catseye is still running hot in his blood, too, rushing him along even as Jaskier pulls his hair and really starts singing for it. 

“Geralt—Ger—GerALT!” Jaskier shouts, voice going breathy and high. But this is good, it means Geralt’s alive, it means _he’s_ alive. He’s nearly singing opera by the end, back arched and lungs open. 

The muttering outside the door has gone quiet by the time Geralt catches his breath, swallowing until his mouth is mostly clear before he drags Jaskier down into his lap with his back pressed against the bed now to kiss him senseless, tangling his hands in the front of Jaskier’s shirt. When they break apart again, he fixes his near-glowing green eyes on the bard intently. “Have you learned your lesson?”

Jaskier, fully sated, coils his legs around Geralt’s waist and rests his elbows on Geralt’s shoulders so he can grin at him rakishly. “You know, I wonder if I ever will? This was the first time I tried to be a hero and it ruddy well paid off, witcher.” 

Geralt chuckles breathlessly, holding tightly to Jaskier. They’ll have to get out, eventually, since Geralt knows he’ll only hold any enterprising would-be assassins at bay for so long. “I don’t suppose it paid in actual coin?”

“Not this time, unfortunately. I could put the doge in the bag? Ransom him? Nah, his kingdom might be too glad to be rid of him.” 

It’s just a tease, and Geralt eases Jaskier’s immediate protest with another kiss before hoisting him to his feet. “Get dressed, then. I get the feeling you won’t have many allies here in the morning.” 

“I’ll put them in the bag, too,” Jaskier says, deliriously kissing Geralt and not being at all helpful. “I’ll put _you_ in the bag if you misbehave.” 

“I have no doubt you’d try,” Geralt agrees, with the bard still half wrapped around him. “I’ve seen you use it on Yen. You’re lucky she’s at least as forgiving as death. Or as easily frightened.”

He does manage to get Jaskier onto his own two feet, wobbly though his legs are, and threatens to tie his pants in one of his many overly complicated knots unless the bard does them up himself, while he pulls his swords back onto his back. From his belt, he unhooks an iron grapple and a long length of rope. “We’ll go out through the window. Leave them guessing.”

“Ooh, you’ll let me ride you all the way down?” Jaskier teases, nipping the edge of Geralt’s jaw as he does up his trousers and packs his little bag and his lute. “You know, I really thought I was going to die tonight. I’m glad you’re here with a proper exit strategy.” 

“You’re too dramatic for your own good,” Geralt rumbles, pulling Jaskier against his side as they back up to the window sill. “I knew you would only plan for one outcome.”

Then he flings them down into the night, rope gripped tightly in one gloved hand while Jaskier shrieks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very short epilogue will follow tomorrow! 
> 
> Thank you for reading! 🙏🙏🙏


	12. Epilogue

“I’m sorry, I’m going to need all this again,” Yennefer said. “You— _ after _ trapping Death in your sack—”

“The sack, Yen, please. ‘My sack’ sounds so gauche.”

“That’s what you call it all the time!” Ciri tattles. 

“It sounds gauche when a lady says it, Cirilla.” 

“—and then you let him  _ out  _ again? And  _ survived _ ?” Yennefer looks to Geralt to explain why her least favorite bard is still alive. 

“I wasn’t there,” Geralt grumbles. “By the time I made it in, Death was already gone. By the looks of it, I’m not sure he’s coming back. Not for Jaskier, anyway.”

He sighs, looking at Jaskier for further confirmation of the matter, and then to Yen as if he doesn’t quite believe the results, either. He shifts uncomfortably. “I’m not sure what it  _ means _ , to be honest, but everyone’s safe.”

“Except now that Death is back in business—” Jaskier begins, but when Ciri starts to look a little nervous, Yennefer deftly interrupts him: 

“No one’s safe. We’re all going to have to hear about this forever. Is  _ that _ why no one was dying?” 

“I thought you’d figured this out!” Jaskier says shrilly, standing up. “You practically gave me the boot to go fix all this!” 

“I certainly would  _ not  _ have assumed for an instant that  _ you  _ could fix anything, bard,” Yennefer replies haughtily, a little bit like she’s having him on. “That doesn’t sound like me at all.” 

Jaskier looks to Geralt and Ciri for help. 

Geralt takes a deep breath, trying to find the best way to moderate this. “What matters is the world is back to  _ normal _ . The rest of the problems, we’ll have to deal with as they arise.”

"Like the fact that Death is afraid of Jaskier now," Yennefer groans, "So there go  _ my  _ plans."

Geralt can’t help but chuckle at that. It really is something to find himself mixed up with Jaskier. A witcher getting mixed up with a witch, that’s almost poetic justice, but a bard? It’s not that Geralt has any shortage of trouble on his own, but somehow Jaskier finds more interesting trouble to get into than anyone else he knows. He’s gotten attached to it, in a way, and to Yennifer’s brand of trouble, too.

“Does this mean you’re still both my dads?” Ciri prompts innocently, with her hands clasped behind her back. 

"Can I be the fun Dad?" Jaskier laughs, but immediately narrows his eyes. "You're not to  _ call _ me 'Dad,' however, under any circumstances."

The way Ciri's eyes light up tell Jaskier that was the wrong way to discourage this kind of talk. 

"She's too pretty to have been sired by either of you," Yen says helpfully. 

“Shut up,” they tell her together. 

Ciri thinks this is hilarious. “And you’re like…well, I never knew my mother, really. But I think she would have liked you, Yen. So, I hope in the future we’ll work things out like a family…?”

It’s a very gentle nudge in the right direction, but Geralt feels it, and he reaches to put his hand on her shoulder, knowing she’s a strong kid but even strength deserves support. He can admit that now for himself, even. 

Geralt doesn’t have the strongest positive association with family, just the memories of his mother and then her absence. He’s determined to do better for Ciri, and he knows both Yennifer and Jaskier feel the same way (though perhaps neither of them would say it).

“Not like a family,” he assures Ciri. “ _ As _ a family.” 

“A  _ weird  _ family,” Ciri says, but she’s beaming. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
